


when summer's gone

by Ethereally, imalright



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - Summer Camp, Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd Needs a Hug, Felix Hugo Fraldarius Being an Asshole, Ingrid Brandl Galatea Being a Glutton, M/M, Non-Explicit Sex, Sylvain Jose Gautier Being An Idiot, Sylvix Cringe Compilation, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:48:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 34,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25644550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ethereally/pseuds/Ethereally, https://archiveofourown.org/users/imalright/pseuds/imalright
Summary: He wonders if his touch burns Sylvain the way Sylvain’s electrifies his skin. Wouldn’t now be the best time to find out? It feels like they’re already set on a collision course. Felix has made worse life choices than having a fling with his long-lost childhood friend, and he’s marched into the eye of the storm and given it permission to swallow him.Felix didn't expect to reunite with his childhood friends Dimitri, Ingrid and Sylvain when he signed up as a counselor at Camp Garreg Mach for LGBTQ Youth. It's the perfect second chance to get to know them again, especially because Felix moved away and cut off contact before he transitioned. The only wrench in his plan is Sylvain Jose Gautier, who 1. seems to have cottoned on to the fact that there's something very familiar about their new cabinmate, and 2. had the gall to grow upextremelyhot.
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Comments: 156
Kudos: 316
Collections: Sylvix Big Bang





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All art was done by the incredible [Devin](http://www.twitter.com/punchyfakegamer), who went above and beyond for me, and for this story. I cannot stress how much I feel like I won the Big Bang lottery. 
> 
> I divided this story into chapters for the reading convenience of anyone who prefers to read in chunks, but I initially wrote this story without subdivisions and would love it if you hit “Show All Chapters” on top before you dive in. There’s a [Spotify playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0j29V95CoWcgHdxenohr9L?si=hTFgYz3UQP-1Fa6X1A5bSA) for this fic if you’re inclined, chock-full of tunes referenced in this story, and songs Sylvix may have listened to in their teenage years. 
> 
> This is, at its core, a lighthearted story set in a safe space. However, the world outside this space is much like the world we live in, and while nothing heavy happens in the fic itself there will be discussions of serious topics, mostly in relation to characters’ history. I want to be thorough with my warnings, but if you don’t wish to be spoiled, please don’t read the rest of these notes.
> 
> The characters will discuss family death, self-harm, homo/transphobia, alcohol and drug use, and suicidal thoughts. None of this happens in the story itself, but will be touched upon. There is a (non-explicit) sex scene in which the words “breasts” and “tits” are used for Felix’s anatomy; all other phrasing is male-coded or gender neutral. Felix and Sylvain are both slightly inebriated during this scene, but both are enthusiastic and lucid enough to consent. Other warnings include discussion of trans male menstruation (in a mostly humorous context), gender exploration, and gender dysphoria. 
> 
> **MAJOR SPOILER ALERT** : A major plot point of this story revolves around a trans character hiding his identity and said identity being exposed. While Felix’s friends know he is a trans man before they learn he was their childhood friend, I understand this narrative may carry similar undertones to being outed and could be uncomfortable for some. Additionally, a (past, approx. eight years ago) parental death is handled very insensitively by certain characters, and this is later acknowledged to be wrong. 
> 
> Please take care.

There’s only one explanation. Life’s a circus, he’s a clown, and God’s up in the gallery flinging peanuts at him. 

Felix blinks in disbelief for what must be the fiftieth time in the last five minutes, and his internal monologue recycles the same, useless phrase: _holy fucking shit_. He takes a deep breath, attempting to calm the swift flutter of his heart. His mind races like he’s downed three 5-hour Energies and a Red Bull all at once, spitting out a million thoughts, jumbled and incoherent, except for, once again--

_Holy fucking shit._

Felix gapes at the three figures. They hadn't done anything to earn his ire, far from it; in fact, when they’d barged into the cabin and introduced themselves one by one, they’d all been polite. The blonde man with an eyepatch was the first to stumble in, introducing himself as Dimitri Blaiddyd. He certainly had the demeanor of a startled baby giraffe for someone so big and hulking, tripping over his own feet and nearly bumping his head against the top of the doorframe. It was sickeningly endearing. Felix knew a Blaiddyd, once, and this man felt like he could be related to the little kid Felix had been friends with so many years ago. 

Assuming Dimitri wasn’t that same kid was Felix’s first mistake.

To Felix’s credit, his name hadn’t been Dimitri years ago. But when an equally blonde woman marched in and announced that her name was _Ingrid_ , Felix’s alarm bells should have started blaring at full blast. Felix had been friends with an Ingrid back when he lived in Edmonton, along with the Blaiddyd kid. Ingrid’s sharp posture, warm green eyes, and strangely familiar “Hello there!” should have instantly tipped Felix off. And if that hadn’t, the friendly way she jostled Dimitri should have-- Ingrid was shaking Dimitri’s shoulders, fussing at him to put his suitcase in a safe corner before “you-know-who” showed up and started imposing his “neat freak agenda” on them. Instead, Felix raised an eyebrow, folding his arms and leaning on the wooden cabin wall. 

“I’m Felix. Care to tell me who ‘you-know-who’ is?” 

Ingrid’s lips had just parted to answer before the door slammed open, thudding sharply against the wooden wall. A man with a double helix piercing stormed into the room, dragging a yellow suitcase adorned with stickers from bands Felix didn't recognize. Felix’s first thought, shamefully, had been “he’s hot”. But then he spoke, and Felix instantly felt like someone had reached into his chest and ripped the breath from his lungs.

“Starting the party without me? How could you.” 

With bright red hair, piercing brown eyes, and a jawline that could cut glass, the final piece of this shitty puzzle needed no introduction. It had been years since they last spoke, but Felix instantly recognized him: Sylvain Jose Gautier. Or “Trouble” to his father, “Your future husband” to Glenn, and, to ten-year-old Felix, the bane of his young, closeted existence. Sylvain had grown into a tall, striking man with a lopsided grin, showing off his stupid brawny arms in his stupider muscle shirt. The spark in Sylvain’s eyes hadn’t changed since the day they parted twelve years ago, and Felix felt his heart stop for a minute when he realized Sylvain hadn’t changed on the surface at all-- he was still a walking, talking firecracker. 

“Dimitri! Ingrid!”

Sylvain beamed so brightly it was blinding. Dimitri and Ingrid rushed him, tackling him from both sides to pull him into a tight hug, and Felix was instantly hit with a strange, haunting sense of loneliness.He’d seen the childhood he could have had, a life surrounded by their radiant warmth. In another life, he’d have been wrapped up in that hug. Felix had put his hands in his pockets, biting his tongue to quell his racing thoughts, focusing on the loudest, most harmless one--

_Holy fucking shit._

That’s how Felix ended up standing here, leaning against the wall, feeling like fate’s favorite chew toy as Dimitri and Ingrid pulled away from Sylvain. He hadn’t met any of them during his orientation session. They must have been at the other one. After all, why would the universe warn him before flinging him into the deep end? 

The three of them turn to Felix with matching bright smiles, and Sylvain gives Felix a wave. “I’m Sylvain. Pleasure to meet you! I don't know if Dimitri and Ingrid have told you already, but we’ve known each other for a really long time.”

 _Don’t I know it_ , Felix wants to spit, but he greets Sylvain with a shrug and a curt nod. “Couldn’t have known,” he drawls, standing up straight, and a part of him is screaming, indignant, telling him to stop being stupid and say _Hey, fuckers, me too_.

Felix is struck with memories of childish tears and wailed goodbyes and long, hurt emails addressed to a name that’s no longer his. It never was. He pushes down the urge, extending his hand to take Sylvain’s in a firm handshake. 

“Felix. Felix Ma. Guess you’re all stuck with me.”

Ma wasn't Felix’s last name back then. 

Now that they’re closer, Felix has a clear view of the contours of Sylvain’s face. Fuck, he’s grown up handsome, with high cheekbones and curious brows and the faintest laugh lines framing his eyes. Twelve years, two puberties and a name change later, and one fact still holds true: Sylvain has Felix by the dick. 

If he weren't supposed to be a “mature adult,” a “camp counselor,” and a “shining example for LGBTQ youth,” Felix would decree eleven A.M. a great time to start drinking. 

He pulls away from the handshake, sticking his hands back in his pockets and fiddling with their hems. Dimitri, still the king of subtlety, clears his throat once, twice, shifting uncomfortably from side to side before speaking.

“Ah, I hope this isn’t too awkward for you, Felix. Ingrid and I have not seen Sylvain in an incredibly long time, so we requested to be placed together. I hope you do not feel too left out by us as a result--”

“It’s fine,” Felix says, cutting Dimitri off. Perfect. Dimitri still speaks like he ingested a thesaurus, but with twelve more years to learn even more long, incomprehensible words. Between that and the very bright, very gay rainbow rug Sylvain produced from his suitcase, Felix has decided he’s homophobic now. He wants to march up to Hanneman, hand back his keys, and take the next flight home to Seattle so he can cuddle with his cats, gay camp for teens be damned. Sylvain twirls the rug around above his head and addresses the room.

“I saw this on sale last July and picked it up. Any objections to Bed, Bath and Beyond’s ‘Rainbow Capitalism’ collection?” 

Ingrid shrugs. “It is Pride month.” 

Dimitri flashes Sylvain two thumbs-up, and Felix gives him a grunt of approval. Sylvain pumps a fist in the air (cute) and begins unrolling the rug, bright and garish and so _Sylvain_ it hurts. Not that he really knows who Sylvain, or any of them, are any more; Felix only has his own assumptions to work from. He awkwardly turns to Ingrid, who’s unpacking a frayed suitcase that might once have been mint green. He’s about to offer his help when Sylvain pipes up.

“Hey, Felix?”

Felix whips around. “What is it?” 

Sylvain’s brow furrows and he purses his lips. “Okay. Hear me out. I know it sounds crazy, but you seem really familiar. Do you think we could have met before--”

The loud, robotic chime of the default Apple ringtone interrupts Sylvain. Felix sprints over to the bed he'd claimed, scales the ladder at top speed, and burrows into the bunk he'd built into a mini-nest. He pulls his phone out from under the blankets. The words “Rodrigue Fraldarius would like to FaceTime” are plastered across the screen, along with an unflattering low-angle view of Felix’s face, courtesy of its front-facing camera. Felix grabs the lifeline, climbing back down the ladder and pointing at his phone.

“I’m leaving. I’ve got to take this.”

Felix darts out of the cabin, relief flooding through him as the door slams behind him. He takes a few steps towards the woods, the cacophony of his ringtone still blaring from his pocket. His father is the last person he wants to talk to right now , but at least his old man gave him a temporary out. He groans, slumping onto a bench by the forest, blankly staring at his phone. A series of texts from his brother pops up.

哥lenn: Hey Fetus  
哥lenn: Fetus  
哥lenn: FeeFee  
哥lenn: Feeeeeeeeeeeeee  
哥lenn: Pick up  
Felix: No 

Felix sighs, switches his phone to silent mode, and shoves it back into his pocket. He’ll face his childhood friends soon enough, but he just watched them stagger into his cabin like fellow clowns, piling in one by one into their idiotic shared clown car.

Not that Felix trusts in some stupid higher power, but he has to wonder if God plans to shit in someone else’s cornflakes any time soon. Because if not, Felix better start acting fast. He never thought he’d say this, but he’s ready to be the sideshow for once.

*

He sits on the bench for an hour, at least, maybe longer. More than fifty percent of that is spent with his head in his hands, and the rest is spent ignoring Glenn and trying to get in touch with Annette. She’s probably as busy as she usually is on Sunday afternoons, having homemade mimosas with Mercedes or baking cookies with Dedue and Ashe. Felix can’t help but feel a little pathetic after he’s texted her, “Hey, you around?”

Fine. She’s busy. She has plenty of friends who aren’t him, so it makes sense. Though every time he brings that up with her, Annette shakes him and pouts that Mercedes, Dedue and Ashe are most certainly Felix’s friends too. Felix suspects he and Annette simply have different definitions of what ‘friendship’ means. 

Anyway, it’s not like he _needs_ to talk or anything. Annette’s got a life of her own. She was so delighted to hear Felix was spending a summer away at camp, herding teenagers. Annette’s too nice to want to be rid of him, but she’s always said he should try making friends outside of her circles. And much as he hates to admit it, it’s lonely being the only trans person he knows. It was one of the reasons Felix had impulsively applied as a counselor at Garreg Mach Camp for LGBTQ Teens, full of adrenaline from his midnight coffee and the glow of his computer screen in the 2 a.m. dark. 

Felix grits his teeth and impatiently flicks his attention over to check his texts, to no avail. That counselor application had been a call to the universe for _new friends_ , not extremely old friends he abandoned when he left Canada at age ten. 

Perhaps he’ll wake up on the plane to Garreg Mach and discover this is just a strange, caffeine-induced dream conjured from something stupid like nostalgia. He kicks the side of his calf sharply. No dice.

He’s still sitting at the edge of the woods, doomed to spend the summer rooming with Dimitri, Ingrid and Sylvain. Fucking fantastic.

The loud chime of a bell rings through the camp, and Felix checks his phone. It’s 12 p.m. A growl rumbles out of his stomach, startling him with its sheer volume. Come to think of it, he hasn’t eaten since he landed six hours ago, and he’ll starve if he keeps at it much longer. He suspects Ingrid’s already dragged Dimitri and Sylvain to the dining hall. She’d always spent hours raiding the fridge at the Fraldarius home, stuffing her tiny cheeks with as many pork buns as she could before she had to return home. 

Felix drags himself up off the bench and trudges toward the large dining hall in the center of camp. He opens the door and sees counselors scattered around the cafeteria, sitting in clusters at different tables. A familiar redhead leaps up in the back, waving excitedly at him.

“Hey! Felix! We’re over here! Come join us once you’ve got your food.”

Well, fuck. There’s no escape.

Even though his stomach's screeching, Felix can barely bring himself to take more than a tiny portion of mashed potatoes and fried chicken from the buffet. The acidic, wrenching feeling in his gut overpowers any sense of hunger, and he hates it, hates this, hates everything.

He lumbers toward Dimitri, Ingrid and Sylvain, who are sitting in the middle of a group of counselors. Sylvain shifts slightly to the left to make room for Felix next to him, and their elbows bump as Felix sits. Perhaps it’s wishful thinking, but Felix feels the slightest spark of static electricity. 

Sylvain flashes him a grin. It’s more radiant than it should be for someone who’s just landed from a cross-continent flight. Felix briefly wonders if Sylvain shares his coffee addiction. 

“Food’s surprisingly good. I thought it was going to be like. School food. I teach at a _école secondaire_ , so I’ve had plenty of that.” Sylvain grimaces. “But I might actually go for seconds. Ingrid’s already gotten thirds.”

Ingrid jabs Sylvain in the side with her elbow. “Yeah, and?” 

“You went back for seconds and ate the rest of my mashed potatoes when I said the chicken was better. I think that counts as thirds--”

“Technically, thirds happened to be next to me and I...” She takes another bite of her chicken, “Just happened to eat them.” 

Felix snorts. “Are you one of those people who thinks with their stomach, then?”

“Yes. Sylvain’s jealous he can’t enjoy as much food as I can, so don’t mind him,” Ingrid says, shoveling some baked beans into her mouth. It’s then when Felix realizes he should dig in too. He lifts the chicken drumstick to his mouth, and the pepper and garlic blend spills across his tongue. Not too shabby.

Sylvain beams. “See, I told you. Food’s surprisingly good.”

“It really is,” the girl sitting next to Ingrid pipes up. She’s pretty, with curly auburn hair and bright green eyes. Felix recognizes her from his orientation session; her name is Dorothea. “It wasn’t this good last year. Either they’re giving us false hope before camp actually starts, or they allocated more dollars to the food budget. I’m not complaining.” 

Dimitri looks up from his food. There’s a small mountain of chicken bones at the corner of his plate that rivals Ingrid’s.

“By the way, are you doing all right? You left the cabin quite suddenly, but it seemed like you wanted to be alone. I didn’t follow you. Should I have?”

 _Am_ I _doing all right?_ Felix wants to spit back. Now that he’s had some time to think about what transpired an hour ago, he’s got questions. How did they all end up here? What the hell happened to Dimitri’s eye, and was it remotely possible to close the gap Felix had dug for them in the last twelve years? The thought of blurting out the truth crosses Felix’s mind again, but he shoves it back down. He can’t just _say that_ in the middle of the dining hall; he’ll sound like a fucking idiot. Maybe he’ll talk about it later, in the private space of the cabin, just in case Dimitri starts crying. He takes another mouthful of the chicken.

“I’m fine,” he shrugs. “Just needed to take a call.”

Sylvain drums his fingers on the pale wood table, lifting his left hand to cup his own cheek. “Well, that’s good to hear. You looked like you’d just seen a ghost.” 

“Did someone say ghosts?” the darker man seated next to Sylvain grins. He’s wearing a white button-down shirt with garish banana print covering half of it. Felix spends one of his day jobs attempting to explain web design to technologically illiterate old farts; somehow, this still manages to be the worst top he’s ever seen. “I’m Claude-- or Khalid, whichever you want. He/they. Heard this place is haunted.”

“There are no ghosts here,” the girl on Claude-Khalid’s other side groans. Her name is Hilda; her bubblegum pink hair made her stand out during Felix’s orientation session. “Except you. Aren’t you using ‘Hantu’ or something as your camp name? Isn’t that just the Malay word for ghost?”

“And what of it?” he quips. “Actually, I haven’t heard from the rest of you. We should probably start using camp names for each other so we don’t slip up around our kids. What am I calling you guys starting tomorrow?”

Fantastic. Felix's nerves had just begun to dissipate, but they return with full force. He’d thought of a camp name in a state of complete desperation, submitting the form at 11:59:59 PST the night of the deadline. The more he reflected on the name he picked, the more he regretted it. “Do we have--” Felix begins, but Ingrid is already answering the question.

“She... her? For now. Also, Red,” Ingrid volunteers. Straightforward, plain, and definitely less embarrassing than Felix’s. Great. He’s suddenly very interested in shaping his mashed potatoes into a mountain with the back of his spoon. 

Khalid nods. “Nice and simple. I like that. Anyone else want to go?” 

“Mine might come across as silly,” Dimitri says, “But I promise it makes sense. Turnip. Uh, he/him. I,” he laughs nervously, “Spent a lot of time on the Animal Crossing stalk market earlier this year.” 

“This is pointless,” Felix murmurs, but he’s drowned out once again. 

“Usagi! She/her,” Hilda sings, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. “Like Sailor Moon! Fighting evil by moonlight, taking lots of naps, crying a lot. Anyone else?”

“Orpheus. She/her,” Dorothea says. Ingrid blinks at her in confusion, as though she’s expecting Dorothea to elaborate. Dorothea beams. “I’ve been teaching music here for years, and I’d walk into hell for a pretty girl, so I think it fits.” She winks at Ingrid, and Ingrid immediately blushes the shade of the cherry tomatoes on her plate. Absolutely incredible.

Only Felix and Sylvain haven’t gone yet. Felix takes a spoonful from his mashed potato mountain. He might have made a fuss when he was younger, but he now knows there’s no point to further objections. Perhaps if Sylvain goes before him, the fire alarm will ring, they’ll all need to leave, and Felix won’t have to speak. While they’re at it, pigs will fly, his father will learn to apologize instead of bringing plates of cut fruit, and Glenn will come out as a raging homosexual. Sylvain chuckles, setting down his piece of fried chicken. 

“He/him. And before the rest of you start judging me too hard for being a nerd, I teach high schoolers English for my day job. Anyway, Larkin. Like the British poet Philip Larkin.”

A soft murmur travels across the table, though Dimitri and Ingrid seem unfazed. Somehow, Felix isn’t surprised either; Sylvain bombarded Felix with book recommendations when they were kids. (Felix was only interested if the books had blood, gore, and pictures.) Hilda exchanges a glance with Dorothea before turning back to Sylvain. 

“Wouldn’t have taken you for such a nerd. You certainly don’t look like it,” she says. She inches closer to Sylvain, and the red-hot pang of an emotion Felix can’t recognize burns in his chest. He munches on the chicken, trying to ignore the feeling. It's hard given how handsome Sylvain looks when a corner of his mouth curls into a half-smile.

“Well, that’ll teach you to judge a book by its cover,” Sylvain says. He turns to Felix. “What about you?”

Great. There’s no avoiding it now. Sure, Hilda picked an anime character for her camp name too, but it somehow feels less idiotic than his. Felix is certain he’s flushed the same color as Ingrid, and he stares at his plate, desperately avoiding eye contact with the rest of the table. Finally, he blurts out his camp name.

“He/him. Vegeta.”

A strange silence settles upon the table, as though they’re expecting him to elaborate. Felix continues playing with his food, but at least the other counselors aren’t laughing. He glances up and sees the same damned half-smile etched on Sylvain’s lips. He narrows his eyes, about to demand Sylvain spit out what he’s thinking, but he’s interrupted by Hilda launching herself across the table. She raises a hand, offering Felix a high-five. 

“Oh my god. I’m so glad I’m not the only weeb out here. When we’re done with all these introductions we’ve _got_ to talk about anime.”

The flash of annoyance he felt earlier melts into relief, washing through him and undoing the knots in his back and shoulders he attributed to his binder. He returns the high-five, wondering why he was ever so on edge. “If you want,” he says. He isn’t entirely sure what talking about anime with Hilda constitutes, but he’s willing to give it a shot. 

See? He’s making friends. Annette would be proud. 

“Mind if I join?” Sylvain chimes in. “I haven’t watched anime in a while, but I love the classic stuff. Sailor Moon, DBZ. Last year my friend dragged me to _Promare _with her and I ended up seeing it ten times. You could give me some recommendations,” he says, turning to face Felix.__

__Was that meant for him and him alone? Regardless, Hilda doesn’t appear to notice. “You too? Wow, you really _are_ a bigger nerd than I thought,” she says, propping her head up on her knuckles. “The more the merrier! But yeah, I was totally obsessed with Sailor Moon as a kid. I’m pretty sure Sailor Neptune and Uranus made me realize I’m a lesbian.” _ _

__He can’t explain why, but Hilda’s last comment fills Felix with a second wave of ease. She scoots over to sit down on the other side of Felix and swiftly launches into a soliloquy about the latest titles. Felix occasionally chimes in with other recommendations for Sylvain, but lets her handle most of the talking. He’s just finished explaining the plot of _Kimetsu no Yaiba_ when Hilda declares she’s done eating, grabbing her tray to set it aside. _ _

__“Great talking with you two,” she smiles, waving at the two of them. “Let’s do this again!”_ _

__“We can,” Felix says. At this point, most have left the dining hall. It’s just him, Sylvain, and a couple of other slow eaters. Felix turns to Sylvain, frowning. Now that they're alone he can’t get Sylvain’s half-smile out of his head; the way he hummed in amusement, the flicker of glee that twinkled in his eyes. Felix doesn’t know Sylvain well enough anymore to be able to tell if it was mocking or fond, and it could drive him crazy._ _

__“You were about to say something earlier. Spit it out.”_ _

__“Wasn’t anything important. Don’t worry about it,” Sylvain says. He bumps his shoulder against Felix’s. “Want to head back to the bunk?”_ _

__Felix stares down at his half-eaten food. He’d been too irritated to finish earlier, then too absorbed in conversation. He decides against finishing it; if Sylvain wants to go back, Felix will too. All in the name of friendship, or in the name of not eating cold food. Felix gets up from his seat._ _

__“Only if you tell me what you were going to say.”_ _

__“Why so curious?” Sylvain teases, getting to his feet as well. “You seem awfully concerned with the opinions of a stranger.”_ _

__“Will you just spit it out already?”_ _

__What is it about Sylvain that drives Felix wild, even after all these years? The half-smile is back, and Felix is absolutely sure it’s mocking him now. It isn’t an unkind smirk, far from it; he’d seen plenty of those, etched on the lips of bullies he dealt with as an early teen. Sylvain’s just winding him up for laughs, pulling his proverbial pigtails. Or perhaps that’s just what Felix wants it to be._ _

__The worst part is it still works like a charm. Felix can’t help but notice something new each time their gazes meet, and it's novel and familiar and terrifying all at once. This time, it’s the flecks of green in Sylvain’s mostly brown eyes, as warm as always but hardly as bright as they’d once been so many years ago. There’s an inferno of danger that belies them now, and Felix wonders if this is what walking into fire must be like, taken by the lure of hot, flickering flames._ _

__Sylvain pulls back, rattling the chicken bones in his tray._ _

__“I was just going to say Bulma was my favorite.”_ _

__Well, shit._ _

__For what must be the hundredth time today, Felix is stunned into silence. He recalls playing Dragon Ball Z with Glenn and his friends as a little kid, huffing and crying until they let him be Vegeta even though he was a “girl”. Sylvain always leaped at the chance to trade: it didn’t matter what gender they were, he’d be Bulma if it meant Felix could get to be his favorite. Felix always thought it was just Sylvain acting on his very obvious childhood crush. It gave Sylvain the chance to give Felix as many stupid pet names as he wanted, giggling and cooing as he called Felix “honey” and “sweetheart”, lifting Felix’s hand to his mouth and kissing it with a wink._ _

__Had Sylvain really, sincerely liked Bulma? Why does it matter, anyway? It wasn’t as though his choice in fictional characters then could dictate who he is now: they still barely know each other. Felix looks down at his hands, and he realizes he’s started picking at the skin around his nails. He shoves them into his pockets._ _

__“You kept me wondering all this time for that?” Felix scoffs. He doesn’t suppress the smile that slowly spreads once Sylvain’s back is turned._ _

____

*

Dimitri’s alarm goes off at exactly six forty-five in the morning. The dulcet tones of “Baby Shark” blare through the cabin, echoing off the wooden walls. Felix hears a loud groan from underneath him. He leans over and sees Sylvain sprawled across the bottom bunk, face smothered by his pillow. His legs stick out of the foot of the bed, and Felix is suddenly grateful he’s not any taller. Sylvain lets out a loud, dramatic sigh.

“Already?”

“Yes, Sylvain. Already.” Ingrid emerges from the bunk across them, holding the edges of her pillow. A wicked grin surfaces on her lips as she smashes it into Sylvain’s stomach. The pillow connects with a soft thud, and Sylvain lets out a cry not unlike that of a dying whale. (Not a baby shark, at least.)

“I’m begging you, Ingrid. Please. Five more minutes.”

“Absolutely not,” Ingrid says, whacking Sylvain with the pillow again. “Get up, or you’re going to miss breakfast, and the rest of us are going to have to deal with you whining about being hungry. Dimitri, come help me deal with him. And, uh,” she says, glancing hesitantly up at Felix, “You don’t have to, but if you’d like to get an early head start on bullying Sylvain...”

 _Are you kidding? I was the CEO of bullying Sylvain. Get on my level._ Felix doesn’t want to admit how much the scene fills him with warm nostalgia, how pleasant and familiar it is when Dimitri crawls down from his top bunk and descends upon Sylvain with tickles. Sylvain kicks his feet, hitting the base of Felix’s bed with a loud thud. Felix hisses. 

He hadn’t planned on getting involved, but it’s practically an obligation now.

“That’s it,” Felix says, grabbing his pillow and climbing down the ladder. “You’re going to regret this.”

Sylvain’s howls reverberate through the cabin as the three of them attack, unleashing peals of terror and laughter. It doesn’t take long before Sylvain admits defeat, kicks the blanket off his body, and drags himself out of bed. They all throw on their Garreg Mach regulation T-shirts (complete with camp names on the back) and somehow make it to breakfast right before closing. Felix and Ingrid immediately get into a contest to see who can demolish more pancakes in the next ten minutes. He’s half a pancake ahead when Sylvain grabs both their shoulders and points at the door with his thumb.

“Hate to interrupt this epic duel, but we’ve got work to do.” 

Felix spends the rest of the morning checking in campers with Dorothea, marking attendance, handing them camp gear and pronoun pins, and then shepherding them to their cabins. He’s been assigned some eighth graders in a bunk named Magvel. The kids seem a spunky bunch, for the most part. In particular, there’s a pair of twins sporting matching mint-green hairdos who seem incredibly ready to talk his ear off. Ephraim and Eirika’s eyes widen when they arrive at their quarters; Ephraim drops his duffel bag, and Felix scrunches up his brow, ready to ask what’s wrong. Ephraim senses the question on his lips.

“I’ve just-- I’ve never been around so many other queer kids before,” he whispers, before darting into the cabin at full speed. Eirika is left at the door, screaming at her brother to come get his stupid bag back.

_You and me both, Ephraim._

Did this place exist when he was in middle school? Felix’s life would have been very different if it had; he knows there’s no one way to look queer, and Felix certainly doesn’t fit the stereotype, but so many of the kids sport obvious visual cues. The dyed hair, the piercings, the bright, perfectly mismatched clothes. The trepidation in their steps as they emerge from an outside world hostile to them, unsure if they can trust this supposed cocoon of safety. Felix watches intently as a child with bright pink hair scans the variety of pronoun pins on the plastic fold-out table. They glance from side to side, as though they're hiding some great secret. Dorothea kicks Felix underneath the table, looking up from the sign-up sheet. 

“I think Neimi’s one of yours. Wanna go help them out?”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” Felix snarls, almost knocking over the table as he rushes to Neimi’s aid. He can hear Dorothea cackling in the background as she rearranges the sheets on the plastic desk. 

Once the rest of the kids are settled and the staff has accounted for the stragglers running late, Felix is freed from check-in duty to meet his campers. Magvel seems like it’s going to be lively, to say the least; Ephraim already has two kids on each side of him when Felix arrives at the cabin. They leap away suspiciously when Felix busts open the door, and the purple-haired one named Lyon yelps loudly. Felix clears his throat. 

“Welcome to Camp Garreg Mach. I’m Vegeta. We’re making a cabin agreement with rules. Let’s make this quick for my sake and yours, so we can get past the monotonous introductions and you can jump into the lake before anyone else gets there. Got it?”

The kids let out a loud, rousing cheer. Felix blinks back in shock. Well, that was shockingly popular.

The rest of the day is a blur. Introductory games are less boring than Felix imagined-- Lyon offers “I killed a man once” in two truths and a lie, and insists for a good five minutes it’s the truth. (After some poking and prodding from Ephraim and another kid named Knoll, he finally admits he meant a murder in Minecraft.) Herding them towards the lake is a rougher affair.

By the time he’s finished administering swim tests, and the Magvelians -- Eirika’s idea, not his -- are happily bobbing up and down in the water, Felix is too exhausted to join. The summer sun is hot and sticky, and his binder feels like it will melt to his ribs. He should've worn a sports bra like he does when he works out, or tried some of the TransTape in the nurse’s office. Neither method gets Felix as flat as he wants, but Garreg Mach’s probably the last place that anyone would judge. He sighs, sinking into the deck chair as he watches his kids duke it out. Maybe he’ll give the TransTape a shot tomorrow. 

Once they’re done swimming, it’s time to get the kids cleaned up and ready for dinner. The spicy, salty scent of spaghetti and meatballs hits Felix when he arrives at the dining hall, and he watches as the Magvelians wolf it down, along with a dessert of fresh fruit. “Can’t have our kids getting constipated,” Claude winks as they pass by with their campers, all of whom can't be older than ten years old. Felix rolls his eyes, doing his best to ignore the aching in his chest, which definitely isn’t because he’s slightly envious, and is only because he’s been binding too long.

(It must be nice for those kids to have a community from that age.)

The camp nurse, Manuela, gets on a table in the middle of dinner, ringing a bell and declaring that it will soon be time for a campfire. Felix’s campers finish inhaling their food before rushing out to the main courtyard, where Sylvain’s throwing logs into a giant bonfire as bright and vibrant as his hair. The other counselors begin shuffling their campers into seats, and once Felix is done he rushes over to help Sylvain, who’s rolled up his sleeves to reveal a tattoo of the Death tarot card on his bicep. Felix rolls his eyes.

“Show-off,” he whispers. Sylvain winks back. 

“That means you’re looking.”

Felix refuses to grace _that_ statement with a response. The bonfire dances into the night sky, sending a flare of light into the starscape above. Felix steps back to admire their handiwork. “We’re done here,” Felix murmurs, marching off to rejoin his campers. Dorothea’s sitting across the courtyard with an acoustic guitar, and she clears her throat, strumming a few chords. She taps her mic, once, twice.

“Welcome to Garreg Mach, everyone! Now that I’ve got your attention, you should all look underneath where you’re sitting. There should be a booklet with song lyrics in it, so feel free to consult it if you don’t know what I’m singing. Since it’s some of your first times at camp...”

Dorothea proceeds to launch into a speech about the history of Garreg Mach, the beauty of LGBTQ solidarity, and how lovely it is that they all made it here. Felix glances to the right and sees Ephraim asleep on Lyon’s shoulder, and Eirika is desperately trying to shake him awake. He decides to pretend he didn’t see them, though his smile betrays him. Felix steadies his gaze, doing his best to focus on Dorothea, but it’s difficult when live entertainment is happening right next to him.

He’s interrupted by a loud, familiar shout. 

“All right, guys! Who’s ready to sing your heart out?”

Sylvain has leapt from his seat across the courtyard, cupping his mouth with his hands to form a makeshift megaphone. Felix suspects Sylvain doesn’t need it, considering how loud he is, but maybe the placebo helps. He shuffles to his feet and gestures for his campers to do the same. (Ephraim’s eyes shoot wide open as Sylvain startles him awake.) Once everyone’s standing Sylvain claps his hands together, before getting down on one knee and opening his arms out wide, gesturing at Dorothea as though to say “Look at her.” Colm, one of the kids in the back, giggles.

“Heh, he’s Will Smith posing.”

Felix has no fucking clue what Colm is on about.

Dorothea beams, giving Sylvain a little curtsy. She strums her guitar once more, starting a song Felix has never heard about a little green frog. The lyrics are silly, but Dorothea’s voice is low and melodious, nearly hypnotic. Felix scans the crowd and finds Ingrid wide-eyed, staring at Dorothea. Hmm. Interesting. 

In the section next to her, Dimitri’s belting his heart out, singing as excitedly as the seventh-graders he’s in charge of. Felix’s mother nicknamed Dimitri “Puppy” when they were kids, and Felix sees a reflection of that in Dimitri now, the same unflappable joy echoing in his low tenor. And Sylvain-- 

Sylvain--

He’d always been charismatic. Felix’s father had once said Sylvain could likely charm his way into any situation and then back out, and that holds true more than ever. Felix’s gaze can’t help but drift towards Sylvain as he sings, baritone slightly off-key, laughing as he fumbles the words. Yet there’s a smile on his face like he was meant to be here, and it’s warm as the bonfire and just as alluring.

*

If Felix was a thirteen-year-old trans boy at summer camp, he’s pretty sure he’d be bitching and moaning about making bracelets too.

It’s a true feat of self-control he doesn’t say this out loud. After all, he’s supposed to be setting a good example for the kids, not encouraging toxic masculinity. He dealt with it enough when he was a child, and as a result, it’s still difficult for him not to reflexively squirm when asked to do anything remotely feminine. 

Nevertheless, Felix fully understands why Ephraim and Colm are rolling their eyes in the corner while the other kids descend upon the craft table with wide-eyed excitement, squabbling over which colors and patterns are the best. Above the ruckus, he can hear Colm complain about how _boring_ this is and how he’d rather be swimming, Ephraim responding with how he’d _rather be dead_. Felix squints in their direction.

He could try to have a conversation with them, but that feels like a waste of time. Instead, he marches over to the bowls of beads, digging his hand into a pile of neon pink ones and yanking the biggest, brightest orbs out. He shoots the boys a glare Annette described as being able to shatter glass and curdle milk. 

“You coming?”

Felix waits with bated breath as the two boys exchange glances. He wonders for a split second if he might've been too harsh, but he remembers he’s holding a bunch of bright pink beads in one hand and wearing a shirt that says “Vegeta” on the back. There’s probably very little that’s intimidating about him right now. 

Ephraim sticks his hands in his pockets and waddles up to the table with string and beads. Colm follows shortly after. Felix makes a show of picking out the rest of his bracelet extremely slowly, taking the time to examine every single bead that comes in both white and baby blue, keeping an eye on the two boys. Ephraim grabs a roll of string. 

“You don’t think this is... Weird?”

“What about it?” 

“I... I don’t know. I hate girly shit,” Ephraim admits with a sigh. Ah, there it is. Felix shrugs.

“Gender’s fake. Do what you want. I won’t force you,” he says, softening his tone. Felix knows in theory he’s speaking the truth, but he hopes he conveyed the right spirit in his words. It’s not as though _he_ doesn’t sometimes struggle believing them. He grabs a bowl from the side of the table, tossing in the beads heselected .

“You can also make friendship bracelets with just string if you don’t want to use beads. Ing- Red’s behind me teaching some kids. But only if you’re up for the challenge.”

Ephraim’s eyes light up the moment Felix says ‘challenge’. Before Felix knows it, Ephraim and Colm have run off to where Ingrid’s squatting with a group of campers, staring transfixed at how she knots and braids the wool thread. Felix sighs. He isn’t sure if that was the best way to handle the situation, but what does he know about teenagers, huh?

“Nice job.”

Felix whirls around to see Sylvain behind him, a wide grin plastered across his face. His arms are already laden with rows of sloppily made bracelets, presumably gifts from his campers. 

“Someone’s popular.” 

Sylvain shrugs, “I can’t help being charming and delightful. Seriously, though,” he says, walking over and clapping Felix on the back, “I never would've guessed you don’t work with kids for your day job. Your campers are obsessed with you.”

“Actually, I do. I teach Wushu part-time at the rec center. It’s what I’d spend my life doing if I didn’t have bills to pay.” 

Sylvain wolf-whistles. “Knew those guns came from somewhere. Look at you. Now I know that you could snap me in half if you wanted.” 

Despite himself, Felix can’t help but flush. “Is that a request?”

“Nah,” Sylvain winks. “That’s an invitat--”

“Larkin, look at me!”

A tall, lanky girl with hair pulled into side ponytails, who Felix recognizes as one of Sylvain’s campers, Cynthia, scrambles on the plastic table. . She holds her string of blue, pink and white beads proudly above her head, and Felix lunges over to stop her. Before he can say anything,he’s interrupted by a loud, scattering noise. 

Cynthia blinks in shock as all the beads in her bracelet slide off the string and spill all over the ground. Felix groans.

“Get down from there! I’ll help clean this--”

“No sweat, Vegeta,” Sylvain says, tapping Felix's shoulder. (Sylvain might have briefly grabbed his bicep, but that’s probably wishful thinking.) “I’ll take care of it.” 

Felix is barely able to process the series of events before Sylvain marches over to the mess and bends over to pick up a single bead, gingerly placing it in a basket on the corner of the table. He then leans down to grab another, back snapping upwards as he repeats the motion, and then does it again. Felix is about to say something about how inefficient this is when he hears a sigh. Ingrid marches over from behind them, squinting at Sylvain with a puzzled expression. She’s wearing a hat that reads “Women Want Me, Fish Fear Me”, which looks like she’d bought it from a souvenir store.

“Sy-- Larkin. Are you enacting a real-life _Legally Blonde_ reference?”

Felix has never seen the movie and he’s suddenly very thankful for that fact. Sylvain grins, pushing out his chest ever-so-slightly when he picks up the next bead. “Didn’t think you’d get the reference. Anyway, what do you think of my Bend-and-Snap?”

Ingrid raises a bemused eyebrow. “Bro, I’m a lesbian in law school. Of course I’ve seen _Legally Blonde_.” 

“Point taken,” Sylvain says, bending over once more to seductively pick up a bead, sticking out his ass ever-so-slightly. “Anyway, answer the question. Rate my Bend-and-Snap!”

“It’s fine,” Ingrid says, her voice taking on a deliberate, unfamiliar monotone. “Could use more spring in your snap, but you’re doing okay. For your standards.”

“You wound me,” Sylvain says, grabbing his chest. “Vegeta, tell me I have high standards--”

“Sure,” Felix says, grabbing a spare basket from the table and bending over (without snapping) to help gather the beads. Cynthia climbs down from where she was standing on the table, apologies spilling from her lips as she gets on all fours. 

“I’m sorry,” she begins, “This is all my fault--” 

Sylvain shakes his head. “No worries. We’ll get this sorted. Vegeta and I will help you put it all back together. Isn’t that right?” He smiles genially at Felix, once again the perfect picture of a Good Example.

“Yeah,” Felix nods. Cynthia yelps out another apology, but they manage to clean up in good time. When they’re done they usher Cynthia to her seat, Sylvain sitting on the edge of the table she was working at and Felix awkwardly hovering over her shoulder. Sylvain leans in with a smile. 

“All right, let’s see. You were working on a pretty complex pattern, right? Do you remember what order you threaded the beads in? If not, let me help you work something out...”

Felix watches with wonder as Sylvain slowly guides her through the pattern she was following, bouncing ideas off a teary Cynthia and offering her suggestions. He runs over and grabs his own bowl of blue, pink and white beads, following Sylvain’s instructions as he feeds them ideas. In a matter of minutes Cynthia’s tears turn into smiles, and when they’re done Felix and Cynthia have matching trans pride bracelets, thanks to Sylvain’s artistic direction. He barely has time to breathe before Dimitri rushes over, beaming with that same golden retriever energy he had as a young child. How annoying.

“Ing-- I mean, Red, come over! Take a look at my handiwork. I made these.”

Dimitri extends his hand as soon as Ingrid arrives, unfurling his fist to reveal four woven bracelets in matching shades of grey, silver and blue. The knots are clumsy and uneven, and the patterns are completely incomprehensible. Considering Dimitri once managed to break Felix’s mother’s favorite plate by stabbing his fork into it too hard when they were kids, this tracks. 

Normally, Felix would make some sarcastic jab, but he can’t really bear to point out Dimitri’s (lack of) bracelet-making skill. He hasn’t known Dimitri long enough Especially given how overjoyed Dimitri looks when he hands Ingrid a bracelet, then one to Sylvain. Sylvain grins. 

“Honestly, I’m impressed you completed one at all. Remember that time you broke a needle when Ingrid’s mom tried to teach you to sew? Thanks, man.”

“These are...” Ingrid bites her lip, trying to hold back her thoughts. “Lovely. Thank you, Turnip.”

Dimitri shakes his head, laughing. “No need to humor me. I understand that these aren’t exactly the works of a master craftsman, but I’m just proud that I managed to complete four. Which reminds me,” he says, turning to address Felix, “I thought... I thought it might be nice for me to make one for you too. Since you’re in our cabin and all. You don’t have to accept, of course, since we have been acquainted for less than a week, but I figured that it might be--”

“I’ll take it,” Felix says, extending his hand to grab the bracelet. “Thanks.”

Dimitri blinks, eyes wide with excitement. “Thank you for indulging me! I hope this isn’t trite, but please do accept this as a symbol of our friendship.”

Felix eyes the trinket, doing his best not to cringe. It’s even uglier close up; the colors seem to blend into one another, a jumble of lost knots and slipped stitches. Never mind that Felix is already tying it to his wrist, and that his stomach feels warm, soft and fluffy, like he swallowed a kitten. Disgusting.


	2. Chapter 2

Felix can’t remember the last time he’d been in the woods at night; he must've been a child, camping with his family in the wilderness. He recalls long trips through the woods of the Canadian Rockies, driving for hours while his mother excitedly pointed out flora and fauna, delivering too-long lectures about different species of trees. 

(There had been the one time he’d gone camping with Dimitri, Ingrid and the Girl Scouts, but Felix prefers to forget those days ever happened.) 

Patrolling the Garreg Mach campgrounds at one a.m. is hardly the same as being in the middle of absolutely nowhere, but Felix can’t help but marvel at how different it feels at night. The chirping crickets provide a soothing soundtrack to his first night patrol with Sylvain. He takes a deep breath, inhaling the scent of freshly rained-on dirt. Felix always thought of himself as a city person, someone who enjoys the luxury of being able to keep his headphones on and eyes on the ground as he blends into a crowd. But there’s something liberating knowing the forest sprawls for miles on end in all directions. 

“You’re smiling.”

Sylvain gently nudges Felix, bumping their arms together. Felix glares up at Sylvain.

“Yes. I believe I was. I’m not immune to emotion, you know.”

Sylvain smiles back and it’s like sunshine. “It’s cute. That’s all I’m saying.”

“Should I take you up on your previous request to break you in half?”

“Whoa there,” Sylvain says, raising both his hands. “First of all, that’s kind of sexy. Second of all, if you want me to stop--”

Felix curls the hand not holding a flashlight into a fist, and he clenches it so tightly that his nails threaten to dig into his skin. 

“That isn’t what I said.”

“Well, that makes two of us,” Sylvain winks back. He leans against a cabin, tossing his flashlight into the air and catching it by the string attached to its back. Show-off. “I think I’ve made it pretty clear that I think you’re cute. But enough about that. So, tell me about _you_ , Felix. Who’s the guy behind the killer arms and the quiet smile?”

Felix isn’t sure whether he wants to jump into Sylvain’s arms and kiss him senseless, or if he wants to throttle him. The answer is probably both. He purses his lips, trying to suppress the fluttering in his stomach. 

“What do you want to know?” he drawls. “There’s not much, really.”

Sylvain shrugs. “Hmm. Favorite color?”

“Blue. That’s a terrible question. Pick a better one.”

“Aw, I was trying to be polite,” Sylvain says. “Wasn’t sure how personal you’d get with a virtual stranger, but I can dig deep. Let’s get cultural. Since you're also Asian, have any siblings your parents love comparing you to?"

Felix tenses up, and he’s lucky he doesn’t accidentally snap the flashlight in half. Sylvain’s delivery is slightly stilted, and he’s definitely digging for _something_.Felix isn’t sure what, but he’s not breaking before he’s ready. “Older brother. Enough answers from me. Why don’t you talk about yourself for a change? Answer your own damn questions.”

“Damn, and here I thought you’d give me the luxury of a third,” Sylvain muses, shoving his hands into the pockets of his board shorts. “My favorite color’s black, and I had an older brother, too. My parents don’t compare me to him any more, though. Because he’s dead.”

Felix’s eyes go wide. Glenn almost died in a car accident the year Felix turned sixteen; only after years of physical therapy was he able to recover. Miklan was always a dickhead growing up, but Felix never would've wished death on him, and the way Sylvain had phrased that... Was he even upset? 

“I’m sorry.” 

“Don’t be. I’m not,” Sylvain says. He winks, and Felix feels the twist of the blade in his stomach. Sylvain had a macabre sense of humor as a child, but he was never this blasé about something like _dying._

Something doesn’t add up. Felix grits his teeth.

“Bullshit,” Felix mutters underneath his breath, but Sylvain has already walked away, flipping his flashlight in the air like a baton and continuing their patrol. He thinks about pushing Sylvain for more, but he’s already humming a too-cheerful tune, one Felix recognizes from the campfire a few nights ago. Felix narrows his eyes, jogging quietly after Sylvain. 

“Bullshit.”

The two of them walk for a while without speaking to each other, Sylvain singing off-key and Felix suppressing a strange combination of concern and bubbling rage. There aren't any wayward kids out tonight; it’s too early in camp season for them to feel empowered to do something stupid, which suits Felix fine. After that exchange, he isn’t sure if he’s in the mood to bark at young campers to go to bed.

Sylvain nudges Felix in the side. “You okay? You went all quiet all of a sudden.”

“I- I don’t know what to say?” Felix sputters. “You just walked off after dropping that on me. Like your brother’s death was some sort of punchline. I almost lost mine too. He’s fine now, but...” Felix’s voice trails off. “That wasn’t funny. Did you expect me to laugh?”

Sylvain raises his arms in defensive protest. “Whoa, whoa. Okay, I admit it. That was pretty tasteless. Don’t speak ill of the dead and all. I really didn’t expect you to have such a visceral reaction though, that’s on me--”

Felix winces. He’s only _this_ angry because he has context, but this feels like the worst possible time to tell him. Sylvain’s acting like a child, but Felix knows he can’t say more without making things more awkward. “Fine. I’ll drop it. Just don’t do it again.”

Silence blankets the two of them. They’ve almost completed a loop around the campsite, which likely means no casualties or stray campers for their first patrol. A decent start, despite the stupid spat they had. Sylvain breaks the quiet with a dramatic sigh. 

“So... Here’s a more interesting question. Ever been to camp before?”

Felix thinks of Girl Scouts, of holding hands and singing songs and learning to tie knots that he found more useful than he cares to admit. He thinks of how much he wished Sylvain could have joined them while they laid in the starry darkness, and how he felt like he belonged back at home with Sylvain instead. 

“Not one like this,” he admits. “You?”

“Same. I was a Boy Scout but never really got into it. Though it’s not my first romp at Garreg Mach-- I was a counselor last year. Dimitri’s the veteran here, since he’s known he was queer since he was thirteen and was a camper here. He got me to join him after I moved to Montréal, since we don’t get to see each other much any more. Ingrid came out last year and we brought her along for the ride.” 

“Ah,” Felix says. “Sounds like you’ve known each other for a long time.”

“Tell me about it. We basically grew up in each other’s pockets.”

“It... It must be nice to have friends like that,” Felix murmurs. He’s thankful he can see the dim light of his cabin ahead. The conversation keeps taking turns that are increasingly personal and increasingly uncomfortable. He fumbles in his pockets for the keys as he approaches, ignoring that Sylvain has his ready and available on a lanyard. 

Sylvain joins him after a few seconds. “Hey,” he says. “Before we go in, there’s something I’d like you to know.”

“What?” Felix hisses, more acerbic than intended. Sylvain seems unfazed, laughing it off and putting his hands behind his head.

“Look. I know you’re going to say that I say this to everyone, but I want you to know that this isn’t the case. You just feel like... Not to be weird or creepy, but you feel like you’re someone who I’ve known for a very long time.”

Felix has never felt luckier to find his keys amongst the mess of gum wrappers and spare change in his pockets. He grunts in response, turning the key and bursting inside.

*

He’s hot and sticky, smells like sweat, and desperately needs to reconsider his life choices. Felix pushes away his racing thoughts as best he can as he digs through his suitcase for his store-brand 3-in-1 shampoo, conditioner and body wash. It’s quite the task to ignore Sylvain casually whipping his shirt off and stretching within Felix’s line of sight.

Felix’s towel, ‘Bleach’ sleep shirt, and boxers sit in a crumpled heap on a chair, and he grabs them before racing to the showers. 

He was used to showering alone at four in the morning before he dropped out of college. Felix refused to stay in a gender-neutral or LGBTQ dorm in his attempt to be as quiet about being trans as possible, and somehow managed to snag a single on a floor surrounded by drunk, rowdy cishet college students. He’d been on T two years by then and figured he’d pass just fine, as long as he kept his hoodie up and spoke to as few people as humanly possible. This plan would have worked were it not for what Felix came to realize was his worst enemy: communal showers. 

There was no way in hell Felix was showering surrounded by gross, sweaty cis dudes, and he would rather slam dunk his head into a chocolate fountain than use the women’s bathroom. Which meant his M.O. for the rest of freshman year was to set an alarm for some ungodly hour, pray nobody else was using the shower, and dart in and out as quickly as possible. 

Felix relocated to a LGBTQ-friendly dorm as soon as he could, and took full advantage of the single-stall, gender-neutral bathrooms he was afforded.

The showers at Camp Garreg Mach were designated gender-neutral at the start of camp. Felix thinks this is a great idea and best for the development of LGBTQ youth, but he also thinks their being public is absolutely unnecessary. He knows it’s supposed to make sense-- Manuela said some fluffy hogwash about helping the campers discard their shame about their bodies and embrace their physical forms-- but perhaps they hadn’t considered the _counselors_ would hate communal showers, too. 

That’s what Felix gets for not reading the fine print on the Camp Garreg Mach website. He hisses in annoyance, fiddling with the diverter valve, muttering curses under his breath as the water oscillates wildly between scalding hot and absolutely freezing. 

The water hisses and spits out of the shower head, emerging in pathetic, tiny droplets one moment and then releasing a jet of liquid the next. Felix grumbles as he grabs his 3-in-1 from the bathroom floor. He’s just beginning to lather it across his body when he hears the bathroom door creak , and he lets out a yelp of surprise. A familiar voice rings from the doorway.

“F-- Fel-- Vegeta-- Fegeta-- Fajita? It’s just me, Turnip. Or Durnip, if you will.”

Dimitri waddles into the bathroom, shaggy blonde hair tied into a little ponytail and wearing a baby blue towel around his waist. His pleasant, genial smile remains plastered on his face, the human embodiment of the :) emoticon. Felix stares dumbfounded at Dimitri, lips parted in shock, while too-hot water washes down upon him like the blessed rains in Africa. 

It's not just that Dimitri has just walked in on Felix, tits and junk out, 3-in-1 Citrus Rush half-spread across his left arm. No, it’s the scars littered across Dimitri’s body, marks Felix hadn’t noticed even when they were lounging in their cabin. A pair of twin crescents under Dimitri’s pecs make Felix flinch with envy when he notices, and stretch marks across and around Dimitri’s waist. But it’s the scars across his pecs that look like they’ve been clawed out by a wild beast, the criss-cross brown lines across Dimitri’s right wrist that stand out starkly on his pale skin. Felix realizes with a chill this is why he’s never seen Dimitri in a sleeveless shirt; why Dimitri’s always wears a blue bandanna on his arm, even while he sleeps. Their gazes meet, and Felix realizes Dimitri isn’t wearing his eyepatch. There’s a burn mark where there once had been an eye. 

Dimitri laughs awkwardly, the very picture of pleasant tranquility, a far cry from the story his scars tell. “I hope that it is all right that we shower together,” he begins. “I understand if you’d prefer for me to leave, since you seem like the type of person who appreciates his privacy. However, I really didn’t think that you’d be here at this hour, though I suppose that’s what I should have assumed given that you weren’t in your bed...”

“It’s fine,” Felix growls, turning away from Dimitri to grab his bottle of 3-in-1. He’s so flustered he doesn’t even lather the viscous soap in his hands, instead raising the bottle and squirting it directly over his head. It’s good that Felix never cared too much about what people think, because Dimitri must now think he’s a complete imbecile. 

_Could I have helped Dimitri if I hadn’t left, and who has he become in the last twelve years?_

Given Felix's last few days, he should've known a task as simple as showering would result in an existential crisis. He begins scrubbing his hair, nails digging into his scalp. Maybe if he washes hard enough he’ll smooth his brain out and forget what he just learned about Dimitri, or the conversation he had with Sylvain. 

“Pardon me, Fe-- Vegeta?” Dimitri says. Great, now there’s no way for Felix to avoid looking at him. He whirls around, trying his best to concentrate on Dimitri’s slightly crooked nose, a trick his father taught him as a child when he whined about hating eye contact. (Ugh, he should have realized Dimitri was his old friend when they first met-- he’d never met anyone with a nose like his. As much as Felix hates to admit it, it’s charming.) 

“Yes?” Felix says. He realizes then he never finished washing off his body, and now 3-in-1 is dripping from his arm. He’s also holding onto the bottle like an idiot still. “Go on. I won’t be here all day.”

“I just wanted to ask after you. Are you alright? You seem unwell.” 

_Shouldn’t I be asking you instead?_

Felix is about to respond when the shower lets out a loud, spitting hiss. A jet of scalding hot water squirts him, blasting the side of his face. He screams, attempting to side-step the water-- but he stumbles slightly, barely regaining his balance. What he doesn’t regain though, is his dignity. Felix squeezes the 3-in-1 bottle in shock, and a stream of viscous, bright green liquid squirts out of it across the shower, hitting Dimitri square in the chest, dribbling across one of his surgery scars. 

Dimitri blinks (winks?) once, twice. He glances down at his chest, then at Felix, and then back at his chest again. A small smile spreads across his face. Before Felix can respond or apologize, Dimitri grabs his bottle of Dove Fresh Cucumber Body Wash. His grin is positively wicked as he squirts body wash directly at Felix.

*

It’s exactly 6:40 a.m. the next morning when Felix is awoken by the buzzing of his phone underneath his pillow. He groans, cursing himself for not silencing it; he’d come back and immediately passed out after his naked and afraid encounter last night. Felix wraps the pillow around his head, but his phone buzzes again. He grabs the device, holding the screen close to his face.

哥lenn: Fetus  
哥lenn: FeeFee  
哥lenn: Feeeeeeeeeeeliiiix the cat  
哥lenn: The wonderful, wonderful cat  
Felix: What is it now  
哥lenn: Just wondering, have you called Dad lately?  
Felix: I spoke to him three days ago  
哥lenn: Hah, that’s what I figured! You should give him a call again soon  
哥lenn: I think he misses his baby so he’s overcompensating by bothering me even more than usual

Felix squints at his phone through the pre-glasses morning blurriness. He rolls off his back onto his belly, typing out his next message. 

Felix: That’s hilarious  
哥lenn: What, the part where he misses you or where he’s bothering me?  
Felix: Both  
哥lenn: Dude it’s bad. He’s been trying to get me to teach him how to use “the Facebook.” He thinks your camp pictures are going to be up there  
哥lenn: I told him that you don’t use Facebook. You know what he said to me in return  
哥lenn: “Everything is on the Facebook, Glenn. I have heard that news is on the Facebook too!!!!!”  
Felix: Lol  
哥lenn: No dude it’s bad. He already believes everything our Chengdu relatives send him on WeChat. We can’t have him spreading fake news from both China AND America  
哥lenn: You are the only person who can stop him from turning into a Facebook dad. You’re my only hope  
哥lenn: I know you talk every day in the group chat, but give him another call?  
哥lenn: Dad still thinks you hate him you know  
Felix: Eh  
哥lenn: Dude I’m serious. Please stop being a brat for once.  
哥lenn: He misses you. I can tell

Felix takes a deep breath, trying to quell the flickering jolt of annoyance rushing through him. He’s more than happy to call out of obligation, but the last time they chatted, he kept asking to FaceTime. Which will lead to him asking about Felix’s friends, and then his dad will be so excited that Felix has friends he’ll want to say hi to them, and then Felix will have far too much to explain— 

He grits his teeth. 

Felix: I’ll do it when it isn’t some preposterous hour for you guys. But I decide when I do it, not him.  
Felix: And no video calls  
Felix: Why the hell are you awake anyway  
哥lenn: Fun fact, I’m going through my old Livejournal  
哥lenn: I thought I was SO COOL back then but I was such a loser haha  
哥lenn: Anyway, how are you? Any news?

Felix feels Sylvain stir beneath him. Ingrid yawns from the bunk across from him, and Felix can vaguely make out her silhouette rising from slumber. She’d always been the first to rise during sleepovers. Dimitri’s alarm will go off any minute now, blaring the dulcet tones of "Baby Shark". A pang of nostalgia shoots through Felix, and he glances back at his phone.

Glenn was too mature to hang around with Dimitri, Ingrid and Sylvain, but he’d probably want to know Felix has found them again after so long. 

Felix stares blankly at his phone. What's he supposed to say? “What up, I found my old childhood friends again, only they don’t know it’s me?” Chances are, Glenn will call him a chicken, laugh in his face, and tell him to pull up his big boy pants and do it already. 

Glenn never saw the last email Felix sent them, though. He never knew the full story of the disintegration of their friendship. 

Felix sighs and types out a response. 

Felix: I told you  
Felix: I’m fine

“Baby Shark” rings through the cabin, announcing the start of their day. Sylvain lets out a pained howl, yelling “God dammit” at the top of his lungs. Felix snickers, crawling out from under the sheets, ready to begin a new day with his old friends.

*

“Ah. Sylvain’s peacocking again.”

Ingrid raises an eyebrow, taking a seat on the edge of Felix’s deckchair. It’s been a week and a half since they arrived, and his campers are settling in nicely. Right now, they’re splashing happily in the water, enjoying the free time after a grueling morning of horseback riding and weaving baskets. Felix stares to where Sylvain is standing on the nearby deck. 

“Hmm.”

Sylvain’s waving at the two of them, clearly trying to catch their attention. (Dare he dream: _his_ attention?) Felix raises his hand and waves back. Ingrid rolls her eyes when Sylvain flashes Felix a grin, but she smiles. She lets out an exasperated sigh as Sylvain tears his shirt off, revealing his extremely well-sculpted abs. He winks and jumps into the lake with a perfect reverse dive. It’s one clearly practiced to impress people at the pool during the summer.

Felix clenches his phone in rage. The worst part is that it’s working like magic. 

Two can play that game. Felix smirks at Ingrid.

“Do you have a spare towel?”

“Yeah,” she says, grabbing it and tossing it at Felix. She’d mentioned being on her period earlier and not feeling like putting in a tampon. Chances are that Ingrid won’t be joining Sylvain in the lake unless she wants to create the next Red Sea. 

“You’ll see.” He tosses Ingrid his phone in return, which she catches deftly. The grin on her face now matches his. “Two can play at that game.”

Felix’s heart is thundering in his chest, ringing so loudly he can hear it in his brain. He’s dated before, but this is different; he and Annette had kind of fallen into their relationship, and this feels like an active, decisive pursuit. The pursuit of Sylvain Jose Gautier. Chiseled, attractive, flirt extraordinaire, and the subject of Felix’s affections at both age eight and twenty-two. Sylvain’s splashing at Felix’s campers in the water. This won’t do.

“Larkin! Leave my kids alone.”

Sylvain beams back. He and two of his ninth-graders have ganged up against Eirika and Tana in a duel to the death, otherwise known as a water fight. Severa’s sitting on Lucina’s shoulders and is kicking water at Felix’s kids: they’ve clearly got a strategy. Magvel does not. Sylvain cackles.

“Why, cause we’re winning?”

There’s no backing down after a challenge like that. Felix tears his shirt off to reveal his chest, completely bare except for the strips of TransTape he’s used for binding. Sylvain’s eyes bulge and he stumbles back, loosening his grip on victory. Now it’s Felix’s turn to wink as he shucks his flip-flops, stretching his shoulders and biceps, noting how Sylvain’s staring. 

There’s a first time for everything. Felix had never thought he’d have that sort of effect on anyone. 

Tana and Eirika hit Sylvain in the stomach with a pair of twin giant waves. Felix starts to make a great show of doing waist stretches. A swell of pride surges through him when he sees how Sylvain’s jaw is practically hanging open, and Felix snorts. He’s worked extremely hard for this body, after all, even if his stomach is churning and he feels just as naked and exposed as he had with Dimitri a few nights ago.

He points at Sylvain, letting out a battle cry.

“I’ll cut you down!” 

Ephraim and Colm cheer from the other side of the lake as Felix does a running jump into the water and dives in cannonball style. Water splashes onto shore, and Ingrid screams as Felix presumably drenches her all over. Too bad. Felix laughs as his head rises above water, knowing he’s wrestled back the upper hand.

*

Felix is lodged between Tana and Innes at lunchtime in the dining hall. Tasty and filling as the cafeteria food is, Felix could kill a man for a bowl of good ramen right now, and he does his best to fake big, enthusiastic mouthfuls of his mashed potatoes. Luckily, Tana and Innes have him occupied. Felix tries to dodge the invasive questions they’re lobbing at him-- no, just because he’s single _and_ bisexual does not mean that he’s “bi himself”, and no, he and Sylvain were not flirting on the decks by the lake a few days ago, _what do they mean_.

“What the hell?”

Felix hears a loud cry, and the sound of feet scrambling onto a wooden surface. He snaps his head upwards to see that Ephraim has crawled onto the table, sporting a casserole-colored stain on his back. He points at one of Sylvain’s kids, Morgan, who’s wearing a wide-eyed look on their face, the very picture of innocence.

“You started this, didn’t you?”

Morgan shrugs and leans back against their table across from Felix’s. “I didn’t start anything!” they say in a sing-song voice. In the corner of his eye Felix notices Sylvain get to his feet, ready to defuse the situation. Felix sighs, pushing his tray of food away to collect his own camper when he hears another, Ephraim-esque shout, and the sound of casserole flying across the aisle. There’s a loud splat, followed by silence. 

One of Dimitri’s campers, Lyndis, gets to her feet. She’s sporting the exact same stain as Ephraim. Sylvain and Felix trade looks of abject horror when they realize that the worst has happened: Ephraim missed. They barely have time to catch their breath before Morgan climbs onto their table and yells.

“ _Food fight_!”

“I think the fu-- eff not!” Felix yells, but it’s too late, and he gets hit in the face with a spoonful of baked beans. There’s no way that he’s going to be able to corral an entire dining hall full of sixth to tenth graders, even with Dimitri, Ingrid, and Sylvain in the room. Especially when the kids are shrieking, laughing, and throwing food across the tables and chairs... And at each other. 

Felix can only watch in abject horror as he sees Tana-- dear, sweet, kind Tana-- grab the collar of Severa’s shirt and stuff a fistful of mashed potatoes down her back. Severa screams, whirling around and almost hitting Tana in the face with her ketchup-stained twintails, before grabbing a handful of salad and shoving it at her. Tana laughs and ducks, and the cabbage leaves float away, landing on the floor near where Eirika’s dueling Lucina with breadsticks. 

_This is the worst summer camp movie ever_. 

His first thought is to grab Ephraim by the scruff of his collar and make him stop what he started. But that isn’t going to do much to stop everyone else-- they’re having too much fun. The Magvel kids hoot and holler while they fling food across the dining hall. To be fair, Felix would have killed to start a food fight at their age. Felix begins to climb onto his table, ready to yell at everyone to stop, when he hears a loud, stomping sound from the middle of the hall, and a stern voice. Sylvain’s.

“All right. Campers of Garreg Mach, listen up!”

He’d heard how Sylvain’s baritone can carry across a campfire, and this time it echoes around the room, authoritative enough to make some kids pause and look up. Sylvain remains stalwart as he’s hit across the chest with a piece of flan, and he stomps a few more times, brow furrowed. Sylvain gestures to Felix, mouthing the words _join me_. 

Felix doesn’t have to be told twice. He rushes over to Sylvain and folds his arms, ignoring how Colm and Neimi have started pouring Coke on his sneakers. Now there are two counselors standing up against their campers, it feels like there’s a shift of power-- the group of kids engaged in the breadstick duel have paused. Eirika takes a bite out of her weapon. Sylvain clears his throat.

“All right, you had your fun. Ever thought about who’s going to have to clean the hell out of this place?”

A gentle murmur spreads across the campers, something along the lines of _oooh, Larkin swore_. Sylvain barely flinches at the callout, tapping his fingers against his wrist. Ingrid sprints towards them from the other side of the room, scrambling onto the table, and Dimitri joins them too, nearly tripping as he gets up. Now they’re four. Sylvain gives them the tiniest smile before turning back to address the kids.

“So, you can either finish what you started and get to mopping and scrubbing, or you’re going to have to subject a bunch of us to cleaning up. And trust me, none of us are paid enough to do it,” Sylvain adds with a bitter laugh. “Party’s over. You all made an agreement to be part of this space when you stepped in here. And you’re going to keep it safe so the baby campers don’t arrive for dinner to your mess. Isn’t that right, Turnip? Vegeta? Red?”

How anyone manages to take Felix seriously when he’s called that is beyond him, but it seems to work. The last, rowdiest group including Ephraim and Lyon end their tussle, all turning to face Sylvain with wide eyes. Felix nods.

“You heard him,” he says, putting on _his_ best teacher voice. “Start cleaning. Now.”

There’s another set of murmurs across the room, the muffled sound of group consensus. “Their frontal lobes aren’t fully developed,” Sylvain says to the group of them in a mock whisper, “So they don’t know how to process consequences.” Dimitri snorts, and Ingrid cracks a small smile. She jumps down from the table. Ingrid marches towards a cupboard, opening it to reveal a few mops and some liquid cleaner.

“Let’s start with what we have here,” she says. “I’ll go to the back and get us some Lysol and cloth. If anyone asks why you all missed afternoon volleyball, I, uh--” Ingrid hesitates, stumbling over a lie, “I’ll tell them that we all got caught up-- caught up--”

“Nobody’s going to ask if we don’t talk about it,” Sylvain says. “We were going to play against each other, anyway. You need a competition to have winners and losers.” 

Felix swears that he hears Ephraim huff that Magvel won the _food fight_ , at least, but he isn’t going to deign him with any sort of response. 

He’s always believed in the power of youth to accomplish anything they want, but Felix never realized how quickly sixty campers can clean an entire cafeteria. The dining hall is scrubbed down and cleaned in less than half an hour, the kids laughing and joking as they wipe tables and mop floors. When they’re done with most of the surfaces Felix turns to Ingrid, muttering, “I’m going to see if I can help in the back.” The kitchen staff probably has their work cut out for them. While some of the kids would normally help do the dishes, he suspects dishwashing duty has fallen to Sylvain. 

Sure enough, Sylvain’s in the back rinsing mountains of dishes in the back, grimacing as he scrubs food scraps from a particularly stubborn tray. A spot of barbecue sauce stains the corner of his lips, and Felix is so tempted to lean in close and smudge it away with his thumb-- to see what intimacy with Sylvain might be like. 

He resists the urge. Felix grabs another pair of pink dishwashing gloves and slides them on. 

“I’ll help,” he says, more a statement than an offer. 

Sylvain beams. “Aw, thanks. Yeah, I’d appreciate that. I thought I’d be here all day. I’ll pass you the dishes when I’m done and you can place them on the drying rack?”

Felix nods, and the two of them get to work, washing and cleaning in silence. Sylvain’s elbow bumps against Felix’s when he grabs a stack of freshly-cleaned trays, and Felix feels it this time-- the electric jolt of friction, the tingling sensation of their magnetic pull. It could be science, his imagination, or a combination of the two, but Sylvain makes Felix see sparks. 

He wonders if his touch burns Sylvain the way Sylvain’s electrifies his skin. Wouldn’t now be the best time to find out? It feels like they’re already set on a collision course. Felix has made worse life choices than having a fling with his long-lost childhood friend, and he’s marched into the eye of the storm and given it permission to swallow him.

Sylvain’s the first to broach the quiet. 

“So. Did you have fun?”

“Have fun what?” Felix says. “Yelling at kids to clean up after themselves?”

Sylvain cackles. “Come on, man. Doesn’t a little part of you enjoy watching a good shitshow?”

“Are you joking? I got something sweet in my mouth. It tasted horrendous.”

“I could put something sweeter in your mouth if you’d let me,” Sylvain says, slinging an arm around Felix’s neck. It might have been sexy or smooth if Sylvain didn’t have a bright red stain down the front of his shirt, and if he wasn’t still wearing bright yellow dishwashing gloves. He’s lucky he’s cute enough for Felix to give him a pass. Felix folds his arms, smirking. 

“I hate sweets. Haven’t you realized that?”

Sylvain laughs. Is that nervousness flickering in his warm brown eyes? “Well, then let me get that off for you--” Felix’s brows raise so high that they could recede into his hairline. He swears he sees Sylvain flush. “I mean, I could give you something better to taste.” 

Felix leans in closer, and he can smell Sylvain’s cedarwood cologne, swirling in with the scent of lavender dish soap. Not an unpleasant combination. He smiles, voice low. 

“Are you going to keep dancing around it? Kiss me.”

Sylvain tears his gloves off. He grabs the sides of Felix’s face, pulling him into a soft, languid kiss.


	3. Chapter 3

They don’t talk about the kiss again. It feels strange to, when they barely have the chance to be alone. Dimitri and Ingrid seem to have made a point to be constantly hovering around the cabin, which makes Felix wonder if Sylvain has mentioned anything. 

It’s likely that the three of them have their own private group chat. Sylvain could have said something there. 

The thought jolts Felix awake in the middle of the night, and he’s not sure if the feeling that shakes him is panic, or worse, jealousy. It might have been nice to be part of that group chat, too.

Either way, he’s too frazzled to go back to sleep. Felix fishes his phone out from under his pillow, checking to see if Glenn or Annette might have sent a late-night text: no dice. He groans and flops onto his stomach, dazed and sleep-deprived enough to consider posting about this weird-ass situation on r/AmITheAsshole. He’s just pulled up his Reddit app when he’s struck with another realization. 

Felix had gotten used to Sylvain flipping, kicking and turning in the middle of the night, the motions rocking him to slumber. But his bunk bed’s been surprisingly still and Felix doesn’t like it. He bends across the bannister, using his phone as a flashlight to hover over where Sylvain normally sleeps. 

There’s a mess of blankets, pillows, and a soft teddy bear that Sylvain had introduced as Bernie on the bed below him. No Sylvain.

Felix frowns and puts his glasses on. He slips down the ladder silently before grabbing his flashlight, sliding on his flip-flops, and stepping out into the cool, dark night. He takes a few tentative steps into the outdoors, staring into the brightness of the full moon. 

_Go back to sleep_ , a little voice at the back of Felix’s head tells him. _What Sylvain chooses to do at night is none of your business._ Yet Felix can’t deny the part of him that’s excited about this-- the part that’s teasing him, reminding him he’s never snuck out after hours to see a boy before. There’s a certain childlike glee at the thought; it’s enough to make Felix sprint out into the night faster. Camp Garreg Mach is fairly big, anyway, and there’s no guarantee that he’ll find Sylvain. 

He could text Sylvain and ask where the fuck he went, but Felix likes the thrill of leaving this up to chance.

Felix can’t have been searching for more than fifteen minutes when his flashlight lands on a familiar head of bright red hair. Sylvain’s leaning against the boat shed near the lake, a joint between his lips and a lighter in his left hand. The stench of weed wafts in the wind, and Sylvain laughs sheepishly, removing the blunt and patting the space beside him.

“Do you smoke?” he asks as Felix slides down next to him.

Felix shrugs. “Smoke what?”

“I hear you,” Sylvain says, taking another hit of the joint, releasing a puff into the cool summer air. “In my defense, I wasn’t the one who brought this here. I confiscated this from Owain a few days ago--”

“ _O- Owain_ brought weed to camp?” Felix spits. “Preposterous.”

“Right? And he didn’t even have the sense to not get caught. Anyway, I found this, so it’s mine,” he says, slinging an arm around Felix and nuzzling his head into Felix’s neck. 

Felix raises a brow.

“And you’re certain it’s safe for you to be smoking? What if there is an emergency amongst your ca--”

“I ran this by Dimitri, it’s cool. He’s said he’d cover for me tonight. Bet he’d cover for you as well, if you needed,” Sylvain winks. “In case you’d like to stay out with me for a while. Anyway, what’s got you out here at this hour? I figured I’d just sneak off and smoke some of this high-quality stuff by myself, since Dimitri and Ingrid are both pretty straight-edge.” 

Sylvain hands Felix the joint and he takes a puff. It’s surprisingly potent.

“You weren’t kidding,” Felix says. “This is... Wow.” How had a fifteen-year-old gotten his hands on something this strong? Felix decides that there are some questions he’s better off not knowing the answers to. Sylvain laughs.

“Told you. Anyway, what brings you out here tonight? I needed to pee and decided that I’d take a walk.” 

The dark circles under Sylvain’s eyes tell a different tale from the one he’s crafting, but Felix knows that given the choice, Sylvain would rather fling himself into the lake than tell him the whole story. Sylvain had always been evasive about his feelings as a child, sliding and dodging around the subject like he’d skated circles around Felix on the ice. This tendency only seems to have intensified. 

“I came to find you,” he says, point-blank. “You were gone and I wanted to know you were safe.”

“Aww, missed me?” Sylvain asks, leaning over and planting a gross, wet kiss on Felix’s cheek. Felix takes another hit in response. 

“I’d take what I can get if I were you, Sylvain.” 

“Ah,” Sylvain says, lacing his fingers with Felix’s, “It’s nice to actually hear you say my name. No offense, but I’m not sure if I could call you Vegeta all the time, you know? I heard someone call Usagi ‘Hilda’ the other day and I did a double take, but with you...” Sylvain smiles gently, and there’s a soft, strange murmur in Felix’s chest, the realization that this is an expression from Sylvain he hasn’t seen in years, “I just want to commit your name to memory. Felix, like the cat. Like the main character in Margaret Atwood’s _Hag-Seed_. Did you know--”

Sylvain hasn’t even finished his sentence when Felix decides he’s heard enough. He pulls Sylvain closer, pressing their lips together in a crushing kiss. Their tongues curl into each other’s, Sylvain’s hand running through Felix’s hair to undo the back of his ponytail, removing the hair tie in a single, sweeping motion. He brushes his fingers into Felix’s dark tresses, gentle as a lover, and Felix feels like he’s standing on a ledge where he could plummet from at any moment.

Sylvain tastes like weed and coffee and the tantalizing rush of a foolish mistake, but Felix has made enough bad decisions that have led him to this point: it feels like the last few days have just been a string of quiet whispers, a voice chanting one more, one more. 

Sylvain’s the first to break the kiss. He presses their noses together, fingers trailing against Felix’s face, almost as if he’s hesitant to tear them apart. Felix knows better than to think this sincere, but it’s difficult to not feel a sense of nostalgia at the physical touch. He thinks of childhood nicknames, playing as knights, and quiet pecks on the cheek when Sylvain had thought no-one else was looking. Their first kiss with each other at camp hadn’t truly been their first kiss at all. Sylvain brushes strands of hair out of Felix’s face, pressing his lips against his forehead.

“Looks like you’d like to do this again.”

“What did I say about taking what you can get?”

“You wound me, Felix. You wound me,” Sylvain says. He uses his index and middle finger to take the blunt back from Felix, bringing it to his lips and taking another puff. “But let’s say we decide to play at that game. What are you willing to give, Felix? Information? Fun facts? More kisses--”

“You’re talking a big game for someone who isn’t giving much back,” Felix drawls. “For all you’ve tried to interrogate me, I find that I know barely anything about you.”

“I’m an open book,” Sylvain says. Felix twitches at the obvious lie, but at least Sylvain knows now that he isn’t fooling anyone. “But sure, I’m almost high enough to answer anything. Hit me.”

It feels like Felix has lost all concept of words now Sylvain has extended the offer. He chews down on his tongue, which suddenly feels heavy and thick as lead. 

“Uh... Fuck, I don’t know. Why is it up to me to come up with questions, anyway?”

“You’re the one who wanted to know more about me,” Sylvain says. It’s then when Felix realizes that he’d never let go of Sylvain’s hand. “What about I start, then? What’s the one thing you’d bring with you on a desert island? Not counting necessities like medication, of course.”

The two of them continue smoking and talking, and Sylvain actually reveals more than Felix expects. Like Felix, he’s also bi, though he’s mostly been with women in the past. Unlike Felix, Sylvain’s been in more relationships than he can count-- he muses about having had a serial cheating problem before he came out, weaponizing aggressive heterosexuality against his attraction to men. Felix talks about Annette, and how he sometimes feels like he failed her; how he loves her still but in a very different sense, and how he’s certain she deserved more than what he could give. Sylvain laughs, pressing another kiss to the side of Felix’s mouth and whispering, “Her loss.” Felix smiles like he almost believes it.

It feels like they haven’t been talking for long, but some time must have passed considering how lightheaded Felix is. He gets up to stretch, feeling a strange sense of calm wash over him; he doesn’t remember having felt this relaxed the last time he’d smoked a joint. Felix smiles over at Sylvain, goofier than he’d like, and he feels a twang in his chest when Sylvain beams back. He glances into the sky, staring into the full moon and shielding his eyes with his palm. 

“The moon is so bright out there,” Felix mutters. “I’m going to fight it.”

Sylvain walks over to Felix and slings an arm across his shoulder. “How are you going to get up to do that, babe?” 

Sylvain poses an extremely good point. Felix squints. 

“You see how the moon’s reflection shines into the lake? If we get close enough to it we can crush it in close combat.”

Sylvain cackles, planting a wet, sloppy kiss on Felix’s nose. “Felix, you’re hysterical. Yes, of course I’ll help you fight the fucking moon. We aren’t going to swim there though. Not when we’re this high.” 

“All right,” Felix says. He marches towards the shed door and throws it open. “I’ve got a safer alternative. Put on a life jacket, we’re going to take a boat out there.”

Felix’s movements are clumsy and his motions are slurred, as though he’s pushing through molasses, but somehow he and Sylvain manage to fasten on life jackets, grab a tiny rowboat and set it on the water. Together, the two of them start paddling through the lake, closer and closer towards where the moon smiles back at them. When they reach the reflection Felix lunges at it with both his hands, bending down and scooping water to fling in Sylvain’s face. He’s met with a hearty laugh. It’s still warm out, but Felix feels as though he’s sitting by a hearth in the middle of the winter, increasingly drawn in by the crackling light and the smell of firewood. 

Sylvain lets out a battle cry and leans down to splash Felix back. Felix howls like a startled cat, barely managing to dodge out of the way of the stream of water. Sylvain grins. 

“Did you win?” 

“I’m still fighting,” Felix growls, scooping more of the water to shoot in Sylvain’s direction. They’re probably flouting at least three Garreg Mach Water Safety rules, but what the camp directors don’t know won’t hurt them. Sylvain doesn’t bother to fight back, instead allowing himself to get splashed. He turns his head to look into the sky. 

“Maybe I’ll fight the sun tomorrow. We could be great warriors, fighting side-by-side in an epic battle for the ages against the cruel brunt of celestial bodies. How does that sound?”

“Hmph. There’s hardly the need for poetics. We’re two adults who should know better than to partake in tomfoolery, not fighters in a world-shattering conquest against unknown forces. Where did you get that plot, some video game?” 

“Just made that up, really.” Sylvain lifts his oar to sit across his lap. “Why, are you a gamer?”

“I am not a _gamer_ ,” Felix says, making air quotes around the final word. “I play video games. There’s a difference.”

“How does that not make you a gamer?” 

“That’s different. Gamers are a subculture in and of themselves.” Felix says. 

It feels strangely refreshing, being out here with Sylvain; there’s something both peculiar and calming about this all at once. When it’s just the two of them, sometimes Felix can’t help but feel like they haven’t been that far apart, almost as though Sylvain’s singlehandedly bridged the space of the last twelve years without realizing. 

Felix’s last vestige of common sense reminds him that he should broach the topic of their childhood. He pushes it away. Best not to ruin the first good thing he’s had in years while they’re on a little canoe in the middle of the lake. Felix dries his hands on the sides of his sleep shirt.

“We’re heading back,” he says. Sylvain nods.

“You got it.”

The two of them paddle back in slow, measured strokes. As per usual, it doesn’t take Sylvain long to break the silence.

“So, if you _were_ in a fantasy video game. What would you be?”

“I’d have a sword, of course,” Felix says. He’s thought about this more than he’d care to admit. “Kind of comes with the martial artist thing.”

“God,” Sylvain says, palming his face, “Don’t remind me. Every time you talk about that I instantly lose brain cells. When do I get to see you do some moves?”

Felix blushes. “Shut up and answer your own question.” 

“Fine, fine,” Sylvain laughs. “Look, this is going to sound silly, but as a kid I always used to pretend to be a knight. I don’t think I’m that noble. Certainly not right now, but I used to hang out with Ingrid and Dimitri and we’d take turns being horses and Dimitri would be our king. So that’s who I’d like to be in a video game-- a cool knight who protects his friends.” 

Felix’s mouth instantly goes dry at Sylvain’s words. The memories of their shared childhood are etched into his mind; Felix remembers crawling around on all fours in Dimitri’s bedroom, wailing about having to be the horse _again_ when Sylvain hadn’t had a turn at being ridden. He grips the handle of the oar so tightly he fears that it might break. 

When words fail Felix, he turns to barbs.

“Sounds like a pretty stupid game to me.” 

Luckily, Sylvain doesn’t seem to take his statement to heart. He laughs, and that almost makes Felix feel even worse, chilly tendrils of guilt gripping his stomach. 

“Look, we were kids. Of course it was dumb. We had this whole scenario around it though. We lived in a magical, imaginary land. We had a whole map around it and named the territories after ourselves, and pretended that we were nobles serving Dimitri the King. Our land was called Faerghus. One of our other friends decided it was called that because it sounded like it was far away--”

Felix takes a deep breath, trying to steel himself. He chews on the inside of his mouth, doing his best not to betray any emotion; never mind how _that’s me_ rings in his head like a dirge. “Another friend?” Felix asks. This charade has gone on for far too long; the more he drags it out the worse the fallout is going to get. He knows he shouldn’t be asking too many questions about his younger self, but he can’t help but wonder. Had he meant anything to them, even if it had been so long ago? 

“Yeah, there used to be four of us. The last one moved away, though. I wonder where they are now, actually,” Sylvain says, leaning in closer to Felix. The moonlight reflected in Sylvain’s soft brown eyes is gentle, knowing. “They were a sweet kid, kind of a crybaby. I’m not sure they’d want to know where we are, but--”

“We’re here now,” Felix says as they pull up to the brink. His gut instinct had been right. It’s pointless to ask any more questions, and the less he knows about what Sylvain had once thought of him the better. Sylvain has barely stepped off the canoe when Felix begins dragging it back towards the shed. He stows it upright between two shelves with a loud click, just the way he’d found it. Sylvain frowns.

“You doing okay? You were chatty and then you went quiet all of a sudden.”

“It’s nothing,” Felix growls. “I’m just tired.”

The two of them trudge back through the woods in silence. The calm from Felix’s earlier high is starting to wear off, slowly replaced by a silent panic, his heartbeat thundering furiously in his chest when he realizes what he’s wrought. Sylvain’s a few paces behind him, and while part of Felix wishes desperately that he could grab his hand and squeeze it, reassure himself that everything is going to be alright, he knows he can’t afford that. Not until he’s mustered up the guts to tell Sylvain and friends the truth.

Felix has always prided himself on being a blunt person who doesn’t mince words. He isn’t sure if he can say that about himself anymore. 

Sylvain jogs towards Felix and laces his arm into his. Felix doesn’t flinch when Sylvain presses a kiss on the side of his face.

“Hey, Felix,” Sylvain says, his voice deep and honeyed like a lure. “Look, I don’t know if I said anything-- if I did anything--”

“You didn’t,” Felix mutters, shoving his hands into his pockets. Once again, he doesn’t flinch when Sylvain greets him with another soft peck. “I’m just... It’s the weed, okay? I think the second wind hit me late. Now I’m a grand old mess.”

“Aww, baby. You’re my favorite kind of mess,” Sylvain says, ruffling Felix’s hair. “Anything I can do to make it better?”

Felix mouths the words “Kiss me,” against his best judgment. 

Sylvain doesn’t need to be told twice. He presses his lips onto Felix’s, shoving him against a nearby tree. Felix moans into the kiss, pulling Sylvain in closer by his waist; his tongue grazes against Sylvain’s bottom lip, demanding entrance, sighing in delight when Sylvain’s mouth parts to let him enter.

They kiss like longtime lovers, trusted friends, deep and passionate in a way that Felix has never known before. Sylvain cups the back of Felix’s head and gently caresses Felix’s cheek, knee grinding against Felix’s crotch teasingly, deepening the kiss. Pleasure surges through Felix, and he digs his fingernails into Sylvain’s scalp, electric jolts sparking through his veins. He feels the clash of Sylvain’s teeth against his neck, and a cry of desire escapes him, filled with more yearning than he’d care to admit.

This defies all rationality, all good sense. Felix shouldn’t be feeling flutters of excitement when Sylvain sucks another deep mark into his neck, shouldn’t be swelling with pride when he thinks about the scratches he’s leaving down Sylvain’s back, claw marks that scream _mine, mine_. They don’t belong to each other-- Sylvain’s talked about being a serial cheater and a flirt, and Felix has hardly been honest enough with Sylvain to say he’s given himself up, but perhaps the temporary delusion of it is enough to ease whatever tension Felix might have felt earlier. 

Sylvain pushes closer into him, and delight rushes through Felix, thrills coursing up his spine. Maybe for a moment he can close his eyes and pretend.

It’s almost enough to return Felix’s earlier smile to his face.

They’re interrupted by a sudden, rustling noise, and the sound of a snapping twig. 

Sylvain yanks away. He glances around their surroundings, mouthing the words, “Who’s there?”

They’re met with the same rustling. A soft, haunting laughter chimes through the air, whispers in the wind twinkling like mischievous ghosts at play. Trepidation yanks Felix in its icy grip.

Sylvain’s brow furrows. 

“I think it’s just some wild animal,” he laughs, hollow. Felix narrows his eyes. 

“What, are you afraid?” he snarls. The marks Sylvain left on his collarbone still feel raw and tender. Felix takes a deep gulp of air. “Come on. L- let’s investigate.”

“Afraid of some mysterious laughing in the middle of the night? Couldn’t be me,” Sylvain says. The tremor in his voice isn’t convincing. 

Felix grabs his flashlight, shining it ahead of him as he walks towards the noise.

The peals of laughter grow louder with every step they take. A chill rushes through Felix’s spine as he continues down the path, but he perseveres, ignoring the sickly sensation creeping through him. A familiar-sounding “Poggers” rings through the warm summer night; Sylvain jumps. Felix bites the inside of his mouth.

“It’s nothing,” he says. It has to be nothing. Ghosts aren’t real, and if they were, they certainly wouldn’t be at Camp Garreg Mach. 

Slowly, the two of them approach a clearing in the forest, framed gently by the light of the full moon. Two figures, shrouded in shadows, sit in the center of the grassland; their voices ring through the night sky and air. Felix hisses, shining his torch on the culprits. 

Ephraim and Lyon let out a pair of high-pitched shrieks.

“What the hell?” Ephraim yells. He stumbles back in panic. A pentagram is etched into the dirt around him and Lyon, and a metallic, sour scent wafts in the wind. It smells familiar, but Felix can’t quite place why. Ephraim points at them, eyes wide.

“H- how did you find us?”

Sylvain’s back snaps upright in a rapid recovery. He beams the torch on their culprits like a detective in a noir film, and a smirk curls on his lips. 

“You were too loud, kids,” Sylvain sneers. “ _Busted._ ”

Felix sniffs the air once again, taking in the festering smell, jaw almost dropping in horror when he realizes what it is. He storms up towards the two children, clapping Lyon, then Ephraim on the back.

“Where did you get the--” Felix stares at the pentagram in disbelief, “--the _blood_ for this?”

“I can explain!” Ephraim squeaks. Fine, they’ve tormented him enough. Felix whirls around to shine his flashlight on Lyon, now known as The Other Culprit. He’s burst into peals of laughter. Sylvain frowns, somehow managing to enter Responsible Teacher Mode when he’s blazed out of his mind.

“Alright. What animal did you guys kill for this?”

“I--” Ephraim glances towards Lyon, “We--”

“We didn’t kill anyone for this, I swear,” Lyon says, raising his hands up. “All I used was some menstrual blood--”

“What the fuck,” Felix spits. 

He hasn’t slept all night; surely the principles of Being A Shining Example for LGBTQ Youth will allow him this one curse. _You don’t start seeing shit when you’re high, do you?_ He rubs his temples in disbelief. Ephraim and Lyon are still here, and so is the menstrual blood circle. Jesus fuck. “And where did you get the--” 

Lyon snickers, pointing down with a wicked smirk, fingers floating uncomfortably close to his pelvis. Felix groans.

“Never mind. Forget I asked.”

Felix hadn’t accounted for “two teenagers trying to summon a demon with their own menstrual blood” when he’d signed up to be a counselor at Garreg Mach, but he should hardly be surprised given the shit he’s seen over the last few weeks.

Sylvain laughs. (Felix feels like he should probably be laughing too, given that he doesn’t know how else to react, but all he manages to do is gape at all them in awe.) He bends over to meet Ephraim at eye level.

“Be glad you two got caught by me and Fe- Vegeta and not someone else. I’m not going to tell on you if you promise to get back to your cabin and go to sleep.”

“Y- yeah,” Ephraim starts, but Lyon folds his arms, sticking his lower lip out in defiance.  
“The ritual’s almost over anyway. Do you think you could let us finish it up?”

“And let you summon a ghost or something? Hell no,” Sylvain says, drumming his fingers on his thigh. “Sorry, Camp Garreg Mach isn’t that haunted. Trust me, I wish it was.”

Felix isn’t quite sure Sylvain’s speaking the truth. He decides against saying anything about it, instead folding his arms and scowling, doing his best to look tough in solidarity.

Lyon hangs his head, defeated. He grumbles and gets up on his feet, muttering something about rituals and “Dark Stones” and a name like “Formortiis”. Felix has a feeling that Lyon’s the one who put Ephraim up to this task, but there’s no use pointing fingers. He’s always going to be an Adult to these kids, a figure who they view as an authority that expects them to fall in line. It’s moments like this where he has the opportunity to show them that he can be trusted-- no questioning, and no accusations. 

Lyon grins, perking up all of a sudden and pointing at Felix’s neck.

“Hey, Vegeta. Care to explain that?”

“Explain what?” Felix asks, self consciously tapping at his neck until his finger comes in contact with a hickey. He feels a small sting, and now it’s his turn to yowl. “This? What are you talking about? I mean, it’s uh. Uh,” Shit, fuck, what are words? “Menstrual blood,” he stutters, speaking the first words that come to mind.

Ephraim and Lyon blink back at him, wearing twin looks of absolute glee. Sylvain is too busy laughing to defend him, so Felix will have to kill him later.

“It’s not menstrual blood-- it’s a bug bite-- actually, it’s not any of your business! Now go back to bed or I’ll march you there myself.”

Lyon and Ephraim high-five. They scamper off into the woods with glee, their laughter ringing through the wind. Sylvain and Felix exchange frazzled looks.

“What a night, huh?” Sylvain says, walking over to Felix and wrapping his arms around him. “Come on, let’s go back to ours.”

Felix doesn’t even want to think about the implications of Sylvain’s last sentence. They trudge back behind their campers, keeping a few paces behind them to make sure they actually return to their cabin. When that’s done Sylvain and Felix stumble back into their quarters, far too exhausted to think about cleaning up or changing into something else; Felix is definitely far too tired to care that he falls asleep in Sylvain’s bed, curling up in his old friend’s arms.

____

*

Felix thinks he hears _Baby Shark_ play in his sleep the next morning, but it’s probably part of a dream. He’s heard it so many times by now that it echoes in his mind when he’s trying to get some rest, a dirge to his sanity in the form of repeating _doo-doo-doo-doo-doo_ s. Felix remains unbudging when a soft force smacks him in the stomach; he lets out a soft whine, giving whoever hit him with a pillow the finger. Finally, someone gives his shoulders a firm shake, and Felix’s eyes jolt open to the sight of Ingrid, armed with a pillow and Sylvain’s Bernie Bear.

He’s got a feeling she enjoys watching them face the consequences of their actions. She grins.

“Spill the beans. What did you do last night?” 

“I-- uh--” Felix stutters. Somehow, he doesn’t think that “we got high, took a boat out into the water, and then found two of our campers trying to summon a demon with menstrual blood” is an answer that’s going to appease Ingrid. 

“We couldn’t sleep, so we took a walk,” Sylvain says, letting out a soft yawn and rolling over to rest his head on Felix’s shoulder. He’s gross and sticky in the glow of the morning sun, but Felix can’t bring himself to mind too much. “Come on, five more minutes...”

Ingrid leans over and thwacks Sylvain with the pillow once again. 

“Or not. Breakfast ends in ten. I swear, if you guys make me miss seconds--”

_Holy shit._

Felix sits upright, slamming his head against the bottom of his own bunk. He howls and lifts a hand to his forehead, pushing Sylvain away when he leans over to ask if he’s okay. 

He’s thankful that his TransTape is still fresh from the previous morning so he doesn’t have to rush to the bathroom to bind again; clean underwear can, and will, have to happen later. Felix slides on the first camp shirt he can find hanging over a foldable chair, and a pair of khaki shorts over his boxers. He and Sylvain sprint towards the dining hall in record time, followed closely by Ingrid. The three of them grab trays and make their way towards the breakfast buffet, heaping their plates with sausages and pancakes. Felix is in the middle of grabbing hash brown number six when he hears a snicker. He whirls around to see Lyon pointing and laughing in his direction.

“What is it?” he groans, reaching up instinctively to touch his neck. He realizes with a chill that he’d forgotten to cover up his hickeys before leaving the room. Fuck. Ingrid doesn’t seem like the type to use makeup, and he doesn’t want to have to ask Dorothea or Hilda for concealer and admit to last night’s events; maybe they’ll buy it if he says that he got some unfortunate-looking bug bites during patrol. 

Either way, it’s probably best to ignore the kids. He raises an eyebrow at Lyon, who’s looking very sprightly for someone who was up all night trying to summon a demon. Felix mutters, “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” before turning back to scoop more food on his plate. He’s interrupted by a loud shout from Ephraim. 

“Hey, Vegeta, nice shirt!”

Felix stares down at his shirt, squinting. It’s just a regular, standard-issue Garreg Mach camp tee; he can’t imagine why Ephraim, Eirika and Lyon might be casting not-so-subtle glances at him and bursting into hysterical laughter. Sylvain takes a step towards Felix, clapping him on the back and whispering into his ear.

“So, I uh... Should have realized my shirt was a little tighter than usual this morning.”

Sylvain turns around and points at his back. The name “VEGETA” is spelled out on Sylvain’s shirt in bright, bold capitals, which can only mean one thing; Felix is wearing one that says “LARKIN” instead. Felix feels the color drain from his face.

“We’re going back to change,” he mutters, setting his food down. He’ll survive until lunch if he has to; there’s no way that he’s spending the entire day wearing Sylvain’s shirt. 

“Aww come on,” Sylvain whines, fluttering his lashes, “I think this is pretty cute. If I’m Mr. Vegeta now, does that make me Bulma but a dude? I didn’t think Vegebul could be improved on, but if it’s gay maybe--”

They are not going to discuss _Dragon Ball Z_ at this extremely fraught moment in time. “We’re _going_ ,” Felix snarls, but he’s interrupted by the loud ring of a bell, signifying that they only have five minutes before camp activities begin. Sylvain laughs, sticking a fork into a sausage and shoving it in Felix’s mouth.

“Sure, sure. Just make sure you get something quick to eat first. Can’t have you passing out in the middle of the day because you haven’t eaten or slept.”

Felix swears he hears some kid murmur “tee hee, Vegeta ate Larkin’s sausage”, but he doesn’t have the energy to unpack that. He stuffs half a hash brown, two slices of bread and three pieces of bacon into his mouth, rushes back to swap shirts with Sylvain, and somehow manages to show up in front of Magvel cabin only five minutes after the designated time. Nobody comments on the bright blue bandanna that he’s got tied around his neck.

The rest of the day proceeds smoothly considering how little sleep Felix had. Sylvain sends Felix a text saying that he and Dimitri will clean up the pentagram if Felix will join Ingrid in supervising water polo between their cabins; Felix feels another pang of jealousy at the reminder of a group chat he’ll likely never be a part of. He replies with a shrug emoji and a “Yeah, sure.” 

That’s how he and Ingrid end up sitting by the lake, bright and resplendent as it reflects the shimmer of the afternoon sun. They’re done keeping score at this point; their role for the day is more supervisory than anything else. Felix had thought that perhaps their kids might be more combative with each other considering their previous interactions, but they seem to be getting along just great given that they’ve only known each other for a few weeks. 

Ingrid’s voice interrupts his train of thought.

“Do you ever wish that you were that age?”

Felix raises an eyebrow, shifting on the deckchair they’re sharing.

“What are you talking about?” 

“It must be nice to be so sure of yourself. I had... I had no idea I wasn’t into boys when I was fourteen years old,” Ingrid says, voice low. She shifts uncomfortably, as though she’s about to speak a truth into the wind that she’d never put into words before. “I’m not... I’m not even certain I’m a woman at age twenty-two. It feels strange watching all these children be more sure of themselves than I am. What if I’d been given the space to explore that as a teen?” 

Felix clicks his tongue. “It’s a waste of time to dwell on the past. Where’s that going to get you? You’ve got the rest of your life to figure it out now.” 

“I know,” Ingrid sighs. “But doesn’t watching these kids make you wistful? Not even a little bit?”

“Absolutely not,” Felix says. His teenage years had been marked by screaming fights, a funeral, and an inbox flooded with emails addressed to the wrong name. He wonders if Ingrid remembers sending email after email pleading Felix to at least tell her he was alive; he swallows the thought. “I’d rather drown than go through my first puberty again.” 

Ingrid nods. A smile quirks onto her lips as Lyndis yells, “Look at me! Look at me!” Ingrid gets up, enthusiastically waving back, and Felix watches in silence for a minute as she entertains her camper. Ingrid slumps back onto the chair when Lyn’s done doing somersaults in the water, leaning over and giving Felix a friendly punch.

“You’re probably right. I should quit navel-gazing and figure things out myself. I haven’t even told Dimitri about this, much less Sylvain. How do you think he’d react to finding out he’s the last cis person in our friend group-- _if_ he is the last cis person in our friend group,” she adds, flushing. “I’m still not sure.”

“Nobody’s rushing you. Sylvain will be fine,” Felix says, tugging at the bandanna around his neck. It’s too hot to be wearing a neck covering, but the last vestiges of his dignity are at stake. 

Ingrid nods.

“You’re probably right. He was really sweet when I told him I was gay, you know? I called him crying one night and two days later he’d sent me this hat as a gift,” she says, tapping the “Women Want Me, Fish Fear Me” hat perched on her head. “Along with a note that said ‘Welcome to the club.’ It’s just that... I remember thinking about gender in early college, but before I could find the words for it Dimitri had come out. And then I got afraid-- scared that I was copying him, scared that he’d think I was faking it, so I pushed the thought back. But the longer I’m here, the more I start to wonder again.”

“Who says you have to decide for sure? This is the best time to experiment, if you’re not certain.”

Ingrid heaves a sigh and leans back on the deckchair. 

“I know, I know. It’s just hard to talk about it. I wouldn’t know how to tell Dimitri and Sylvain, for starters. It feels like they’d known me as a straight woman for so long, and it was hard enough to work up the courage to tell them that that wasn’t me. And I might have to shake their entire perception of who I am all over again. Doesn’t the prospect of something like that scare you?” 

“Hmph. It’s best you-- it’s best you swallow that fear and rise to the challenge,” Felix says, though his own hypocrisy isn’t lost to him. 

Ingrid closes her eyes, nodding in response. “Thank you, Felix. You’re probably right,” she says. “Though, on a more exciting topic...”

She sits up straight, inching in closer towards Felix and lowering her voice. A wicked look dances in her bright green eyes. “You and Sylvain. Spill the beans.”

Ingrid may as well have shocked Felix with a taser. He scoots back, averting his gaze.

“There-- there’s nothing to spill.”

“Liar. I’ve watched you and Sylvain spend the summer acting like a pair of lovestruck kids, and it’s getting painful. At least give me something juicy to torment Sylvain with for my trouble.” Ingrid says, nudging Felix in the ribs. Once upon a time, Ingrid had been an annoying know-it-all; unfortunately, she’d had a habit of being right more often than not, and that doesn’t seem to have changed. He wishes he could yank his bandanna off to wipe that smug smirk off her face. “It’s funny you don’t wish you were a teenager.”

“And might I remind you that this isn’t an interrogation?” 

Ingrid rests her chin against the back of her hands, completely unfazed. 

“I’m not here to do that. It’s just funny watching _Sylvain_ of all people make doe eyes at someone around like a fool. It feels a bit like karma, if you ask me.” 

Felix narrows his eyes. “Is this the part where you tell me that you’ll kill me if I hurt him?” Felix says. “What a cliche.”

“He’d deserve it,” Ingrid says with a laugh, though there’s a tenseness in her voice that Felix is certain wasn’t there before. She’s always been a shitty liar. “He can take care of himself.”

Felix isn’t sure whether she means it as a reassurance or a warning. Ingrid sits up straight, leaning in closer towards Felix.

“Sylvain’s a big boy. I’m not cleaning his messes up for him any more. But what I’m saying is... He’s an important friend, and I wouldn’t be me if it wasn’t for him, so--”

“Get to the point,” Felix drawls.

“I--” Ingrid’s voice hitches in her throat, “I don’t really have a point to make! I just think that he cares more about you than both of you might know.”

There it is.

Ingrid hadn’t been winning prizes for great judgment when they were kids, but she’s known Sylvain long enough to have a good grasp on his feelings. His mouth goes dry at the thought that this could be serious: here it is, his lifeline, the rope he can grasp to bring Dimitri, Ingrid and Sylvain back into his life after he’d lost them so long ago. 

Felix’s mind paints a rosy picture so clearly that it’s terrifying. Parting ways, teary-eyed, with Sylvain when camp ends in a week. Video calls with him where they half-heartedly tell each other to go to sleep. Waking up the next morning to good-morning texts from him, and to selfies and dumb memes saying “this made me think of you.” Group chats with his childhood friends where he blinks and a million messages have passed, Dimitri sending walls of text just as elaborate as the way he speaks, Ingrid’s perfect punctuation cutting through the blabber. It’s warm, and hopeful, and ties his stomach into knots. Felix absolutely detests it. 

Sylvain deserves to be more than that. He’s more than a vessel for Felix’s useless emotions, or a casket to send off Felix’s last shreds of sentimentality. Regret’s a response for the weak, but Felix has always wanted to shove that occasional, lingering hurt into the ground where he can’t see it, leave it to lay with his mother in a coffin six feet under. He can’t drag Sylvain down with his vestiges of remorse. Making their romance last will be harder than bottling lightning. Felix is terrified of getting singed. 

He narrows his eyes, trying to ignore the rapid sound of thunder inside his chest.

“What am I supposed to do with this information?” 

Ingrid throws up her hands. “I’m just trying to help a bro out. Do whatever you want.” 

This Ingrid feels so different from the one Felix had known so many years ago, nagging and pleading and constantly trying to keep the group from falling apart. Despite what they’d talked about earlier, she feels so much more confident, so comfortable in her skin-- Felix wishes he had the words to tell her. 

“Thanks.” Felix is certain that the flush on his face hasn’t gone away. 

Ingrid raises an eyebrow. “Is that all you’ve got to say?”

“S- stop,” Felix sputters. She’s still grinning, and it’s only because of the frolicking children behind them that he isn’t threatening to fist fight her. “Stop antagonizing me.” 

Ingrid snorts. 

“I’m not sure I did anything. One last thing though. I’ve got a song for you that might help. Do you by chance,” she pulls out her phone, plugging a pair of earbuds into them and handing Felix one side, “Like Taylor Swift?”

Felix blinks back at Ingrid incredulously.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he mutters while wedging the earbud in, catching the start of a slow, wistful tune about burnt toast, Sundays, and coffee at midnight. It’s a wistful picture of tantric touches and distant dreams, a picture of a far-off romance where two people get to wake up next to each other in the morning. Desire, love and yearning drip from Taylor’s voice. Felix shudders. Absolutely disgusting. He yanks the earbud out. 

“That was fine. What does some straight white girl have to do with anything?”

“Excuse me,” Ingrid says, puffing up her chest, “I’ll have you know that Taylor Alison has provided me with answers when I needed them. I first thought I might be gay when watching the music video for ‘22’. It’s why my camp name is Red, after her album, Red (2012)--” 

“Taylor _Alison_ ,” Felix snorts. 

Ingrid folds her arms, clicking her tongue. “Fine, see if I try to help you ever again! I’m just saying. One day, Taylor will be there for you when no one else is, Felix.”

Felix rolls his eyes. 

(He pushes away the mental image of Sylvain waking up next to him when light filters in through his window, pressing a kiss to his cheek in the morning.)

*

Considering he and Sylvain would never have stumbled upon Ephraim and Lyon if they hadn’t been as high as entangled kites, their demon-summoning incident seems to have left a ton of trouble in its wake. Sylvain had grabbed Felix when they had a brief moment alone, given him a peck on his lips and asked if he’d speak to his campers.

“Let’s find out why your kids wanted to summon a demon in the middle of the night,” he’d said.

“It will be fine,” he’d said.

Felix pulls Lyon aside after dinner a few nights later and they have a chat in the woods, and it’s entertaining if nothing else. Lyon’s deliberately obtuse about his reasons, citing something about the tide of the sea and the sway of the full moon, but he doesn’t seem to be upset at camp when asked and shrugs when Felix asks him if there’s anything he can do. “It felt like a good idea at the time,” he says in a sing-song voice, and that’s when Felix feels like he can chalk this down to teenage rebellion.

Ephraim, on the other hand, goes pale when Felix asks if they can have a conversation.

“It- it’s nothing,” Ephraim stutters as they step away from his fellow campers, taking a sharp turn so they can sit by the empty fire pit. The sky is cloudy tonight, a far cry from the clear horizon that the full moon had brought days ago. Felix takes a seat on one of the folding chairs, patting the one next to him for Ephraim to join. He gulps, plummeting onto the seat. “It wasn’t for any big reason, it just sounded like a good time--”

Felix frowns. “Are you certain?” he asks. He isn’t exactly the most intuitive when it comes to dealing with people, but he reckons that he’s worked enough with kids to know when they’re lying. He raises a hand to scratch the nape of his neck, thankful that the hickeys Sylvain left have faded and he doesn’t have to wear a bandanna around everywhere any more.

Ephraim nods a little too enthusiastically.

“Yeah.” 

“Hmph.” Felix had never pegged Ephraim as a poor liar, but he supposes that Ephraim’s always had no reason to be anything other than completely honest till now. “And you’re telling me that perhaps peer pressure had nothing to do with this?”

“No,” Ephraim says, the word spilling from his mouth too quick to be sincere. “It was--”

Felix sighs, relaxing his shoulders and rolling them back. Pressing Ephraim isn’t going to get them anywhere. Time to shift gears.

“Look, kid. Larkin and I already told you that you won’t get in trouble for this. You don’t actually have to tell me anything, but I want to know if you’re unhappy. Or something like that.” 

Ephraim squirms in his seat, glancing around rapidly to see if they’re alone. He grips the base of his seat, and there’s a clenching sensation in Felix’s chest; this is serious. Finally, Ephraim sighs, pulling Felix down by the sleeve of his shirt and whispering into Felix’s ear.

“L- Lyon... He told me he likes me.”

Relief washes through Felix. He sits up straight, squinting back at Ephraim.

“And so you decided to go and summon a demon with him at five in the morning?”

“Look,” Ephraim says, and now he’s blushing a rather fetching shade of tomato. “I- I think I like him too, okay? I just like hanging out with him, even when he’s doing dumb stuff. It’s that simple. It’s easier than telling him--”

Felix raises an eyebrow. “So he likes you, and you like him, and you haven’t told him back?”

Ephraim folds his arms.

“Yeah, and?”

“You got me there.”

The two of them sit in silence. Felix thinks about texting Sylvain to ask for advice about what to say, and dips his hand into his pocket to grab his phone. No dice: he must have left it back in the cabin. Felix sighs, wishing desperately that he had the right words to address this situation.

Ephraim bends over to bury his face in his hands. His voice is soft and low when he speaks, shaking and vulnerable.

“Nobody’s ever told me they liked me before. I never thought it could happen, because I’m--” he sighs, “Because I’m like-- like you.”

“You can say it’s because you’re trans. It isn’t a dirty word.” 

Ephraim blinks back at Felix, lips parted in shock. Felix shrugs, casually taking a swig of water from his bottle next to him.

“I don’t blame you. I’ve been there.”

“That’s... That’s a comfort,” Ephraim says, looking down on his dirt-stained white sneakers. “Vegeta, have you ever dated anyone before?”

“I had a girlfriend once,” Felix says. He’s not going to recount the entire story of Annette to Ephraim, but he figures it’ll help to share the SparkNotes. “We didn’t last very long, but I was surprised she liked me as well.”

“What about Larkin?” 

Ephraim glances up at Felix expectantly, and Felix reaches up to scratch the nape of his neck. Sometimes, when he has a rare moment alone, he can still imagine Sylvain pressing his lips against his pulse points, kissing hickeys into his throat.

“It’s nothing,” Felix lies. “But someday you’ll find that there are people who don’t give a shit about what’s in your pants. They’ll see a good dude and like you for that. Simple.”

“I guess,” Ephraim sighs. “It’s just really hard to believe that what’s happening now is real--”

“I’ll affirm that,” Felix says, but doesn’t provide further context. Ephraim wears a knowing smirk that Felix has gotten all too used to seeing at this point. He takes another swig of his water, wishing desperately that he’d filled his bottle with hard liquor instead. “I know exactly what you’re talking about.”

“Yeah you do,” Ephraim giggles, leaning back into his seat. “You’re not slick.”

“This conversation is over,” Felix says, getting to his feet. “I’m not tolerating any more of this preposterous behavior. Now run along and go, I don’t know, summon more demons. Wait, don’t. Do something safer like storming a fortress alone or exploring a phantom ship or something.”

Ephraim laughs, jumping to his feet, and Felix suddenly regrets even offering sarcastic suggestions. _Was I that rowdy at that age, or would I have been if I’d been in an environment where that was encouraged?_ Either way, some questions are probably best left unanswered. He’d said it to Ingrid a few days ago-- it’s a waste of time to dwell on the past. He beckons to Ephraim, beginning to march back towards where the other campers are playing a late-night game of tag. He’s interrupted by the sound of Ephraim’s voice.

“Wait, Vegeta,” he says, running up towards Felix and tapping him on the shoulder. “I have something to say.”

“What is it?” Felix says, whirling around. “If it’s one more question about Larkin, I swear--”

“It isn’t! I promise,” Ephraim says, raising his hands in front of his face. “I just wanted to say thank you. You’re... You’re the first adult like me-- I mean, the first older trans person I’ve met. It’s nice to see that you can be loved. I think you deserve it. It makes me hopeful that maybe Lyon really does like me too and this isn’t just some big mistake.”

Now it’s Felix’s turn to flush. “That’s nice,” he stammers. “Didn’t I say this conversation is over?”

Ephraim snorts. 

“You’re also the funniest guy I’ve ever met. Maybe trans men are all hysterical.”

“Try again,” Felix says, but he can barely suppress the smile creeping onto his face. He’s glowing as he drops Ephraim off, before returning to his cabin. 

Felix doesn’t expect his roommates to be glaring daggers at him when he pushes the door open.


	4. Chapter 4

“Is there something you want from me?” he asks, trying to ignore the rapidly pounding sensation in his chest. Ingrid’s forest-green eyes bore into him when he takes a step closer, and a chill runs through him, an icy grip that ripples through his entire being and whispers an ominous sense that something has gone wrong. Dimitri is sitting on the floor next to her, shaking while he grips a phone in his hand. Felix’s phone. 

Felix snatches the device from his friend’s grip. 

“What are you doing with this?” he snarls. The thundering sound in his chest is so loud that it drains out any coherent thoughts he might have. Felix barely registers the notifications telling him that he’s received six messages from “Rodrigue Fraldarius” before stuffing his phone into his pocket. 

Sylvain leans back against the post of their bunk bed. His voice is cold, honeyed poison as he turns to address Felix.

“So. When were you going to tell us?”

“Tell you _what_?” Felix spits. He can barely hear himself talk through the cacophony of his heartbeat. The pool of dread that’s built up inside him deepens, boring into the cavity of his chest, but he pushes it aside. It’s useless to try and guess at what they’re so angry at, though Felix has a good idea of what might have invoked their ire. 

Ingrid clears her throat, standing up so she can meet Felix at eye level. She storms up towards Felix, and he’s shocked that she pauses a few paces in front of him-- that she doesn’t just slap him in the face. 

“You know, it would have been nice to tell me that you’d known me as a kid. That you’d known all of us as children, in fact. Do you have any idea how much we missed you? Any idea how many tears I shed-- we shed over you refusing to talk to us ever again?”

Felix feels the color drain from his face. “Ingr--” he begins, but Dimitri cuts him off. Dimitri, of all people.

“No, Ingrid is right. I don’t think you can comprehend how much you hurt us all by hiding who you are,” he says, shaking his head and rising to his feet as well. “Felix, I thought that we were friends. I trusted you. To learn that you were lying to us this entire time...”

A wave of nausea floods Felix’s stomach and throat, threatening to spill from his body and pour out through his lips. He grips his phone in his pocket so tightly he fears that it might snap, ignoring the soft vibrating that continues to buzz as his father presumably keeps spamming him with texts. 

“H- how did you find out?”

“Because someone was a fucking idiot who left his phone in the cabin,” Sylvain says, a calm, venomous smile present on his lips. “Ingrid saw who was calling and just about lost her mind. Fraldarius isn’t the most common last name in the world, so good thing you changed it if you were going to keep hiding who you are from us.”

“I- I’ve only ever known one Rodrigue Fraldarius,” Ingrid says, and her lips are downturned now, her eyes brimming with tears rather than anger. “I jumped the gun when I saw your father’s name again after so long. I picked up. I know that it was wrong of me, but I couldn’t help it, and he sounded excited to hear my voice, and then we talked for a few minutes, and then he told me everything...”

“Ah,” Felix says limply. Normally, he’d have some angry storm, some biting remark to counter Ingrid, but nothing comes to mind. The ominous dread that had gripped him earlier has subsumed his entire being, and Felix feels as though his soul has been ripped from the cavern of his lungs. 

Sylvain laughs, bitter and hollow.

“Look, I’ve always had a hunch that you were our missing friend. It was a gut feeling from day one. I wasn’t going to say anything until you brought it up yourself, because I had a feeling that you needed some time to process everything. That part was fine. But now you’ve gone and upset Dimitri and Ingrid. Nobody,” he says, clenching his fist in anger, “Nobody touches _my people_ \--”

He’d aimed those words to hurt, and he hit Felix with a precision strike. 

“S- Sylvain,” Dimitri stutters, but even with their short re-acquaintanceship, Felix knows it’s impossible to stop a wildfire once it starts to burn. “Sylvain, that’s enough--”

“When were you going to tell us about your mother, Felix?” Sylvain sneers. “It was so very lovely to hear that she died from your dad. Did you think that Auntie Kellyn never meant anything to the rest of us? After all the time we spent at your house as a child, raiding your fridge and eating her cooking? Time spent in a home that was more of a home than where I grew up? Now we’re supposed to just lie here and accept that she’s gone?”

Red-hot anger stabs through Felix. He raises his voice to a boiling rage.

“How dare you bring my mother into this. You can-- you can fuck right off.” 

“I thought I knew who you were. The kid I grew up with would never have done this. I used to respect how you’d say what you mean.” Sylvain marches up towards Felix and presses his nose against his, a mockery of the embraces they’d shared in hidden spaces, clandestine. “Maybe _you_ can fuck right off and give the three of us the chance to process the grief that you denied us for almost an entire month. Get the fuck out of here.” 

Now Sylvain is closer to him, Felix can see that his eyes are bloodshot and his nose is swollen red; fuck, he’d been crying, and judging from the sniffling sound emerging from Dimitri he’d been doing the same. Felix yanks himself away, taking a deep breath. Guilt sears through him, red-hot, swirling with panic and grief and rage to create a monster that threatens to consume him whole.

Felix is still shaking when he steps out into the summer night, and the door clicks shut behind him.

*

He calls Annette once, twice. She doesn’t pick up. _Probably too busy having fun with her other friends_ , Felix thinks, though he shudders with guilt when he realizes that he’d been too busy with _his_ friends to call her over the last few weeks. They’d texted a bit, mostly Annette enthusiastically recounting her daily life to Felix and telling him she was glad he was having fun, even if he hadn’t really told her too much about the comings and goings of Camp Garreg Mach.

He’d been such a fool to get suckered into Dimitri, Ingrid and Sylvain’s friendship, only to have it thrown back in his face. Felix grinds his foot into the dirt as he hunches over on the bench by the forest, typing and retyping messages to Annette he then promptly deletes. He finally settles on sending her a text saying “Butt dial”, before slumping back against the bench and stretching out. Felix groans, staring out into the night sky.

“So much for being a role model,” he mutters. Sylvain’s words from earlier still convey an unspeakable rage within Felix, but he’d been too absorbed in his own panic to think about the full consequences of hiding his identity from his friends.

His phone vibrates once more, and his screen lights up, illuminating his face in the darkness. Felix’s eyes widen with hope-- Annette?-- but no, the name 哥lenn is spelled out on his screen, haunting. Felix scowls. He doesn’t remember the last time his brother called him, and he picks up.

“What do you want?” he hisses.

Glenn laughs on the other line, though it isn’t his usual jeering taunt. It sounds awkward? Almost afraid, or at least more terrified than Glenn would ever allow himself to be. 

“Whoa there Fetus. Hostile, much? Can’t I just say hi to my precious baby brother?”

“You never call unless you’re on the phone with Dad,” Felix says. “Is it bad news? Just get it done and over with.”

“It’s not _bad_ ,” Glenn says, and Felix hears a shuffling sound on the other line, as though Glenn is looking about to make sure he’s truly alone. “It’s just pretty serious. Are you alone?”

There's a loud, rustling noise in the distance. A squirrel scampers through a pile of fallen leaves, mouth triumphantly stuffed with fruit and nuts. Felix narrows his eyes.

“Yeah. Spit it out.”

“Whoa there, Fetus. You're even touchier than normal today. What if I decided to just keep you in suspense?”

“Stop deflecting. You wouldn't call without texting if it wasn't important.”

“You got me there.” Glenn chuckles again, and Felix now knows for certain that this must be serious. “Uh, there's no delicate way to put this without me sounding like an ass, so I'm just going to spit it out. How... How should I tell dad that I'm gay?”

Felix's lips part in shock.

“Excuse me?” he gasps. 

“Y- yeah,” Glenn says, and fuck, Felix can hear him shaking. “Shit, I don’t think I’ve ever told anyone before. I’m gay, I’m gay. I said it out loud. Felix, what do I do?” 

“Holy shit.”

Felix rubs his temples. He isn’t quite sure why and how he’s become everyone’s friendly neighborhood LGBTQ+ therapist in the last week, but this is information that he’d never thought he’d ever have to grapple with. What Ingrid said a few days ago about coming out, and how that shatters one’s view of a person rings true now more than ever. Felix had always wondered why Glenn’s romantic relationships seemed to fizzle out almost as quickly as they started, and they’d never really talked about girls with each other, but Felix had just figured that it was out of typical Fraldarius-Ma emotional constipation. It wasn’t as though he’d been knocking on Glenn’s door for romantic advice, either.

Glenn’s breath is short, and his voice hitches in his throat as he continues to speak.

“Yeah. If you have any cool and sexy advice about coming out to your father who’s thought that you were going to give him grandkids your entire life, now would be a great time.”

“The old man will be fine,” Felix says, clicking his tongue against his teeth. “He already had his crisis when he found my Tumblr when I was thirteen. He learned to live with that. I don’t imagine he’d have a hard time learning to live with you, either.”

“It-- it isn’t the same... God, how do I say this without sounding like a jerk?”

Felix rolls his eyes. “You’re going to sound like a jerk anyway. Spit it out.”

“How the hell were you braver at age thirteen compared to me at twenty-six? The thought of telling Dad that he’s probably not going to have grandkids scares the shit out of me.”

“And who says I’m not having children?” Felix snarls. “Dad made me freeze some of my fucking eggs before starting T. I fully intend to reproduce. But maybe it’s doing the world a favor if you don’t.” 

“Thanks, Felix,” Glenn sighs. “Can always trust you to keep it real.”

“I don’t know what you expected from me.”

“You’re right.” There’s another pause, and then, “I know Dad’s going to be fine with it, it’s just...”

“It’s difficult,” Felix says. His phone is overheating; he switches it to his other ear. “You can wait until you’re ready, if you’d wish. I’m not about to blabber.”

Felix can hear Glenn smile on the other end. He finds himself smiling involuntarily as well.

“Thanks, Fetus. You’re alright sometimes, you know that?”

Never mind. The moment’s been ruined. Felix grits his teeth.

“If it were not for the physical distance between us, I would slaughter you with my bare hands.”

Glenn cackles on the other line. “You’re so easy to rile up. I can’t help it, man. It’s like picking low-hanging fruit. No wonder everyone used to tease you so much as a baby. Remember those kids you used to hang with?” 

Felix freezes. Glenn hasn’t brought up Dimitri, Ingrid and Sylvain in what must have been years; Rodrigue must have mentioned his conversation with Ingrid to Glenn. It’s just like his brother not to pry, but he’s clearly fishing for more information about them. 

He heaves a deep breath, feeling all the tension in his back and shoulders drain out. 

“If you really want to hear about it...”

Felix spends the next few minutes recounting the events of the last weeks. How he’d somehow ended up in a cabin with his old childhood friends; how he’d grown to befriend them anew as Felix instead of someone who they knew under his old name. How he’d wanted to tell them about his identity multiple times, but the thought of it had been terrifying, even if Dimitri is trans as well, and how Ingrid had found out about their mother the hard way and how they’d felt furious and betrayed and shattered all at once. 

He doesn’t talk about what Sylvain said to him in the cabin. He doesn’t mention Sylvain’s fury, the magnitude and coldness of which had sent a nauseous chill up and down Felix’s spine. But he doesn’t bring up how Sylvain had kissed him in the kitchen, or how warm it had been in the grip of his arms; he doesn’t tell Glenn about how liberating it was to feel attractive for what might have been the first time in his life. Felix had gotten used to shielding himself from other people’s glances, hiding under hoodies and headphones to blend in with Seattle’s hustle and bustle as much as he could-- Sylvain had made him want to step out into the daylight and let those feelings go. To have someone’s eyes on him and to feel _desirable_.

_How dare he_ , Felix thinks when Glenn pauses to process his account of facts. Felix had wished for normalcy his entire life, to keep his head down and blend into a world so hostile to people like him. Yet Sylvain had dragged him into participating in this strange one-upmanship game of flattery, peacocking at each other like the lead couple in a romcom. He’d made Felix feel like he was worthy of stolen kisses and summer flings, experiences reserved for people more confident and certain and comfortable in their own skin. And then he’d taken all of that and thrown it back in Felix’s face. 

_How dare he._

“Felix, you still there?”

Glenn’s voice jolts him out of his anger. Felix shifts in his seat.

“Where else would I be?” 

“I don’t know, you went quiet for a minute. I figured that maybe your phone reception died or something. Anyway, it sounds like you guys fucked up on both ends, huh?”

“What do you mean?” Felix asks. Aside from Sylvain’s jabs about his mother, Dimitri and Ingrid hadn’t really done much wrong in Felix’s eyes at all.

“I mean, I think it would have been nice for you to say something, but I don’t think you owe it to them, you know? Sounds like they’re all pretty upset because they learned about Mom dying from Dad instead of you, and they’re taking it out on the wrong person. What you said-- you can wait until you’re ready. Shit, I’m sorry you got outed...? Not really? I’m assuming they knew you’re trans.”

“We shared a cabin for almost a month. I’d be flabbergasted if they didn’t realize the first night I slept without a binder.”

“That’s what I thought. If they had a problem with that I’d have to fly across the country and fist-fight them.” 

Felix snorts. Somehow, he has a feeling that his martial arts training means that he could take all three of them in one go, but Felix doesn’t want to fight Dimitri, Ingrid and Sylvain. Not after the memories they’d made together, the fun that they’d shared. 

“The Blaiddyd kid’s named Dimitri now. I’m doubtful that that’s the problem.”

“Hah! Go figure. That makes sense, though. You know, I reckon that part of Dimitri’s hurt is the knowledge that he could have had you growing up. Ingrid and Sylvain sound great but I’d bet that it isn’t the same as knowing another trans kid--”

“How the hell do you know?” Felix asks, frowning. “Is there something else you aren’t telling me?”

“Remember when I told you I was going through my old LiveJournal? I used to troll around transmasc communities so I could get help and resources for you. I ended up talking to this one dude, Christophe, almost every day. He ended up confiding in me a bunch about this sort of thing, and I think... In hindsight, fuck, I had feelings for him. Here’s the part where you tell me that I’m the brother of the year--”

Felix groans. “Absolutely not.”

“Fine, fine. Whatever. Christophe and I ended up reconnecting on ‘the Facebook’ and we’ve been chatting again, but that’s not relevant. Anyway, how do I put this...? It’s not like you’re used to being around other LGBTQ people, while the three of them have always had each other. And maybe if they knew more about your situation, they’d be more understanding. In fact, I’ve got a hunch that they’re going to regret--”

Before Glenn can finish his sentence, Felix sees the familiar, yellow-orange glow from a flashlight in the distance, and a tall figure behind it. He sits up straight to see Sylvain approaching, bags under his eyes and a small smile under his face; Felix mutters to Glenn, “I’ve got to go,” before hanging up. His heart races at top speed when Sylvain approaches him, Felix gets up on his feet, bracing himself to sling a pointed barb at Sylvain if needed. _Go away_ , he wants to say, _get the fuck out of here_ \--

As usual, Sylvain’s the first one to find the words.

“We’ve been looking for you all over. I fucked up. How can I make it up to you?”

*

Felix feels his heart stop when Sylvain approaches. His voice bubbles up in his throat, and the words swimming in his mind are a strange amalgamation of _you’re forgiven_ , _fuck you_ and _why_. He parts his lips to speak, but the phrases combine into an incomprehensible sputter, his breath hitched into syllables that barely make sense. And finally he settles on what he’s going to say:

“You did.” 

Forgiveness won’t come so easy. Not when Sylvain’s cautious “I understand” brings flashes of rage instead of affection, when he tentatively reaches for Felix’s shoulder and Felix’s response is to flinch. He supposes, though, that this means his presence in their cabin is no longer unwanted; and even if it is, that’s Dimitri, Ingrid and Sylvain’s problem. 

Dimitri and Ingrid shoot Felix hushed, apologetic glances when he returns to the cabin. Felix doesn’t acknowledge them: he needs to sleep. 

Slumber washes through him surprisingly easily that night. Who’d have thought he’d ever get too tired to feel enraged? 

He wakes up to the sound of Dimitri’s alarm but leaves for breakfast first. Hilda doesn’t question why Felix doesn’t show up to their usual table with the rest of his cabinmates, and he and Dorothea end up in a heated conversation about whether or not they should switch bodies because it would mean they’d both be cis. They’ve netted out at “it isn’t worth it because Felix has to be white” when Dimitri, Sylvain and Ingrid take their seat on the opposite end of the table, and once again, nobody brings this up. 

Felix realizes between mouthfuls of his omelet that it’s the first time he’s had a fight with friends as an adult; he’s never been close enough to anyone to argue with them before. His gaze flickers towards the three of them at the other end of the table and falls upon Ingrid’s wide, sad, forest greens. Felix instantly turns away. 

Hurt ebbs through him the rest of the day, then the next morning. Sylvain’s words simmer in the back of his mind, but so does the gentleness of his kisses, the ghost of his touch. He spends an awful lot of his days missing someone who sleeps literally seven feet below him, but his kids don’t seem to notice when they’re riding horses in the scorching summer sun. Felix knows every moment that passes is a second wasted they could be spending together, but he’s still shaking with anger. He’d told Ingrid and Glenn to take their time coming to terms with themselves, so perhaps Felix could do with taking his own advice for once. Besides, Sylvain seems to know he fucked up. He’ll afford him that modicum of self-awareness. 

It takes three days when they’re both on patrol for Felix to afford him more. 

The two of them shuffle out of their cabin at eleven, Sylvain keeping a few paces behind Felix as if to afford him space. They’ve barely taken a few steps into the premises before Felix asks, “What the fuck possessed you?” 

Sylvain’s eyes widen, and he takes a step back. 

“I-- I don’t have an explanation. We were all upset. I saw Dimitri get heated, and then Ingrid started to cry, and the next thing I knew-- yeah, Felix, there’s no excuse,” Sylvain sighs, toying with the string attached to the back of his flashlight. “I’ve got my reasoning if you’d ever want to hear it, but I also get if you don’t want to hear about my tragic backstory when I’m the one who messed up a good thing.” 

Felix hates that the last three words ring loudest and clearest. 

“You certainly did,” Felix says, narrowing his eyes. He turns around to face Sylvain, pausing in his tracks. “I should have told you all earlier. I’m aware enough to know that much. But to weaponize my mother’s name when you have _no_ idea what happened to us is despicable. Though it seems as if you’ve punished yourself enough for that.” 

Sylvain stands there in silence. Felix heaves a sigh. 

“I forgive you. I wish I didn’t, but I do. If you ever make me regret thinking with my dick instead of my brain, I’ll break you in half.” 

Sylvain laughs, though the fact he doesn’t make this into a sex joke should be testament to how sorry he actually is. “You don’t have to, you know. I’ve tried to scare you off multiple times by now. I’ve dropped hints about the family bullshit, the serial cheating, and now this. Haven’t you heard? When someone tells you who they are, believe them--” 

Felix fears he’ll punch Sylvain if he self-flagellates any more. Instead, he grabs Sylvain by the scruff of his shirt, shutting him up with a long, forceful kiss. 

It takes Sylvain a split second to register before he kisses him back, allowing Felix to lace a hand in his hair, and Felix tugs at the bright orange strands with a mixture of longing and anger. _I forgive you, I forgive you,_ plays in Felix’s mind like a swansong, conveying the words by digging his fingers into the nape of Sylvain’s neck, pulling him in closer by the waist, and Felix doesn’t stop until the breath is sucked out of Sylvain and he pulls away. Sylvain stumbles back, panting. 

“Holy shit, Felix,” he says. “I didn’t expect--” 

“You weren’t supposed to. Is it not obvious?” Felix says, waiting for Sylvain to take a few steps closer to him so they can keep pace as they walk. He doesn’t object when Sylvain laces a hand into his; he may even squeeze it back. “Regardless, you don’t have to blather on about the past. I see no reason for you to let it weigh you down. ‘Felix’ is more real than the child you might have once known.” 

“I think I owe you at least that much,” Sylvain says. “I haven’t been completely honest with you about Miklan, either. Dropping his death on you when I had a suspicion you were my lost childhood friend was cruel, and it sure makes me a bit of a hypocrite considering how mad I was when I found out about Auntie Kel. Though I figure that you probably don’t have the same rosy memories of my brother that I do about your mom.” 

Despite how close Felix and Sylvain had been as children, he’d only met Miklan a handful of times. Felix mostly recalls Miklan pulling his long hair and breaking his toys, and after a few initial play dates the Gautier parents had stopped bringing Miklan along when they’d hung out. “I don’t.” 

“Great!” Sylvain says, and there’s a quiet bitterness to his tone. “Neither do I. Considering he spent most of my childhood beating my face in while my parents did jack shit, I’d be sorry if I shattered your worldview.” 

Felix feels his blood turn to ice. “I’ll kill him.” 

“He’s already dead.” 

“Good point.” 

Sylvain laughs again and Felix wonders how many times he’s done that in the face of misery-- how many times he might have done so to cover up his own hurt. 

“It’s fucked up. I still miss him all the time, you know? And not that it’s the same thing, but I spent a lot of my teenage years missing you too. And your mom,” Sylvain says, and he’s clenching Felix’s hand so tightly he fears that it might break. “I’m... I’m really sorry for saying what I said. But fuck, I missed her, and when I met you I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d get to maybe meet her too. I even wondered if she’d be proud of me if she saw me now, and... God, I’m sure she’d hate me if she knew what I did to you. I’m sure you feel that way but twenty times worse.”

“Mm,” Felix says, nodding. Suddenly, so much about their shared childhood makes sense; how Sylvain had found every excuse to be hanging out at his house and how he’d hide in Felix’s closet instead of going back home. The story behind Sylvain’s bruises and scrapes should have clicked within him in context, but as a child from a loving family he’d had no reason to suspect abuse could ever happen; he can’t even begin to imagine what Sylvain must have gone through. “I’m sorry.” 

“Yeah, it sucks. What sucks even more is that I’m not even sure it’s completely Miklan’s fault. In hindsight he probably had a bunch of mental health issues, you know? Antisocial behaviors and unchecked aggression that dear old Mom and Dad should have flagged as something he needed to see a therapist for. But nope, you know what Asian parents are like,” Sylvain says with a sigh. He lets go of Felix’s hands, and the smile on his face is sad but sincere. “Didn’t stop that from fucking me up throughout high school and then when I moved away for college. Then I turned twenty-one and Miklan dropped dead from a drug overdose. That’s when I realized that I could either clean up my act, or go out the same way he did. So I got back in touch with Dimitri and Ingrid, and that’s what brought us here. Anyway.”<

“That’s enough about me. Again, I know I fucked up. I’m just glad that you’re willing to talk to me again after all that. I promise, I’ll do my best to make it up to you.” 

Felix wishes that he could say that the rest of their patrol was unusual, and that they talked and laughed like nothing had ever happened, but the dynamic has shifted since their argument. Though it isn’t necessarily in a bad way; Sylvain’s flippant comments seem less airy and more genuine now they’ve laid everything out on the table, and it’s a relief for Felix to be able to talk about his childhood without having to tiptoe over the facts. They circle around Camp Garreg Mach and reach the front of their cabin with no interruptions of the demon-summoning variety, and Felix pauses at the door. 

“I’m sorry, too,” he says, staring at the dirt under his feet. “Our last correspondence through email was... Unpleasant.” 

“Won’t lie, I don’t even remember exactly what you said, just that I was mad about it.” 

Felix’s eyes go wide. “You’re joking. I told the three of you to pretend that I was dead and to never to contact me again. I’d thought,” he says, cringing, “Maybe if I killed the little girl you’d played with you wouldn’t miss her any more.” 

Sylvain whistles. “Edgy. Yeah, I remember now. I actually lost it and sent you a really mean email back. Obviously I didn’t have context back then, so all I knew to do was get angry.” 

“I know now that it was foolish, especially given... Dimitri,” Felix says, his voice trailing off. He hasn’t forgotten what Glenn had said about Dimitri potentially wishing he’d had another trans friend growing up. God knows Felix had sometimes secretly wished for that, too. 

Sylvain leans in, pressing a soft kiss on Felix’s forehead. “I... I kind of get where you were coming from, now that I know what I do. It’s still a lot to take in and put together, especially everything your dad told us, but,” Sylvain winks, “We did get to see you again. That means I win.” 

“Shut up,” Felix says, blushing. “Ingrid’s on patrol with Hilda tonight. That means Dimitri’s alone in the room.” 

“And I can grab Ingrid for a late-night snack if you’d like to be alone,” Sylvain says, pulling his phone out of his pocket. “You know she’ll never say no to food.” 

Felix could thank Sylvain for his help, but decides instead to kiss him one more time. He smiles. “I’m talking to Dimitri without you. Goodbye.” 

He pushes the door open to see Dimitri lying in his bunk, playing on his Switch alone in the dark. Dimitri lets out a quiet yelp when Felix enters the room, flipping onto his side so that he and his Switch are facing the wall. Felix snorts, leaning against the bannister of his bed. 

“Save your game. I’m ready to talk.” 

“Ah, Felix,” Dimitri says, scrambling to sit up. He sets his console to his side. The glare from his Switch and the soothing nightfall music from Animal Crossing: New Horizons set a gentle backdrop for their scene. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t quite sure if you’d want to have a conversation after all that. I hope that your chat with Sylvain went well?”

“It was fine. We’re talking again,” Felix says, leaving out the fact that ‘talking’ means that they were sucking each other’s faces in the middle of patrol. “Are we going to get to the point here, or are you going to keep being a bore?”

Dimitri laughs, holding his hands up to his face. “You know, I called myself Turnip at camp because you used to call me a ‘boar’ when we were children. Daisy Mae’s the name of the turnip-seller in the game I’m playing, and when you buy turnips you--”

“Enough.” The last thing Felix wants when he’s trying to have a serious conversation is an explanation of the Animal Crossing turnip economy. “Bore.”

Dimitri chuckles, but Felix isn’t quite sure what’s so funny about this exchange. He sits up on his bed, patting the space next to him so Felix can sit next to him. Felix supposes he’ll oblige. Dimitri clears his throat.

“I’m sure Sylvain said something about it, but I’m really sorry. I was hurt, but my reaction was by no means acceptable. Ingrid and Sylvain also echo my sentiments... We took your mother’s death and made it about us, and that wasn’t right.”

“Thanks,” Felix says. “Let’s cut the bullshit. There’s something about my mother’s death I want to tell you that I’m not ready to tell the others yet. I’m trusting you to keep your mouth shut.”

Dimitri nods, head bobbing up and down like a golden retriever’s wagging tail. Felix leans back, toying with the bracelet Dimitri made. 

“My last name isn’t Fraldarius any more. It’s Ma.” 

“I’m aware,” Dimitri says. “It’s what threw me off. You never did explain why you changed it, so your father’s name popping up on your phone was highly confusing.”

“I was angry,” Felix says like it’s in the past. “My mother fell sick a few years after we moved to Seattle. My dad found my Tumblr when snooping on me online and found out I was trans. Told me to keep it a secret from my mother and we’d talk about names, puberty blockers, all that jazz after she died. Only she didn’t for months, then years, and I realized I was waiting for her to die so I could be me, so I got fed up and told her myself.” 

Dimitri’s eye widens. 

“That’s awful, Felix. I’m so sorry that happened to you. Is that why you changed your last name...?”

“To hers. Contrary to what my father thought, I got to have two whole weeks of being her son before she kicked it. But every time I saw or heard my deadname, from my father or mother or any of you, I got angrier because I knew I was just biding my time. And one day I’d had enough, so I told the three of you to fuck off. I haven’t told Sylvain this, by the way. So keep your mouth shut about what I just said.”

Dimitri makes a motion across his mouth like a sealing zipper. Felix sighs.

“My father thinks I loathe him. I did for a while. I understand why he did it now but it doesn’t make it right. I just feel fortunate that he didn’t kick me out when he knew. He’s been supportive ever since... but I can’t say I’ve forgiven him.” 

“You can care for someone and love them without forgiving them immediately, you know,” Dimitri says with a lopsided smile. “Sometimes you don’t have to forgive them at all.” 

Felix thinks of Sylvain and how he smells like cedar and sandalwood, and how fire and warmth had poured through Felix when they’d kissed despite the knot of anger that still festers in his chest. He flushes, trying to find the right words to say, but then there’s a knock on the door and Sylvain yells,

“Feeding time’s over. You two ready?”

Ingrid’s voice rings through from beyond the door.

“Feeding time is _never_ over, Sylvain. If you two need more time, we can go get more mini bags of Cool Ranch Doritos.”

“Ingrid, I’ve bought you three packs of Cool Ranch Doritos. You’ve already eaten them--”

Dimitri snorts, and Felix figures he’s made Sylvain suffer enough. He smiles, getting up to open the door and save Sylvain from a terrible fate. Ingrid rushes in, throwing her arms around Felix.

“I’m sorry, Felix. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I can’t believe we learned about your mother dying and then made it all about us, I’m sorry--”

She’s sniffing and there are tears brimming in her eyes. Any anger that Felix might have felt towards her dissipates in a matter of seconds. He lifts an arm to awkwardly pat Ingrid on the back, rubbing circles into her as she grabs hold of him. Sylvain stands behind her holding the aforementioned chip packets to his chest like they’re a baby. 

He and Ingrid remain for a minute, embracing one another. Neither of them hold back tears.


	5. Chapter 5

“So I look up, and _bam_ , Vegeta’s wearing a shirt that says ‘Larkin’ on it. I can’t read the back of my own shirt, but I’m pretty sure I’m wearing his. So what am I to do but accept my fate? Time to go Super Saiyan and try to blow up Earth.”

The crowd around the campfire erupts into raucous laughter. Felix can’t help but cackle, too, even if he’s buried his face in his hands, watching the scene in front of him play out between the gaps of his fingers. It’s the night of the final campfire before the kids leave the next morning, and the counselors have all signed up to put on a talent show for them; Felix had just finished demonstrating how to break wooden boards with a single punch or kick. Sylvain had promised a stand-up comedy routine about the events of camp, and much as Felix hates to admit it out loud, Sylvain is hilarious. Sylvain waits for the cheering to die down before speaking up again. 

“Alternatively, I could be Mr. Vegeta wearing my dear old husband’s shirt. If I was going to get married to anyone in the cast it would be him. The cast of counselors, or the cast of Dragon Ball Z? I’d answer, but I’d prefer to leave Camp Garreg Mach without getting snapped in half.”

Sylvain’s gaze falls across to where Felix is sitting and he winks. Everyone has turned around to stare at Felix now, and he feels a flush creep across his cheeks. One of Sylvain’s kids yells ‘You’d like that’ in the distance, but Felix and Sylvain both choose to ignore the call. Sylvain had cleared the joke with Felix before getting up on stage, and Felix had gotten flustered for a moment before saying ‘yeah, sure, I don’t care.’ He isn’t sure if he necessarily enjoys being flirted with in front of a large crowd, but he’d figured that there was no better time to give it a shot than now. 

It isn’t as bad as he’d thought it might be. He can’t say he dislikes the idea of Sylvain staking his claim. 

At least that’s Sylvain’s only joke about their not-relationship. Sylvain continues to recount the events of camp, jeering about trying to find a single aspirin in Manuela’s medicine cabinet to the ongoing bet he, Claude and Hilda had about whether or not Hanneman’s hair could possibly be real. Dorothea leans over towards Felix, muttering, “He made a joke like this last year, too,” and Felix snorts back in response. 

“How very original,” Felix says. 

Amusement dances in Dorothea’s bright eyes. “I like his newer material better,” she says, giving Felix a friendly jab in the ribs. Felix blushes again.

Lights-out is at eleven-thirty that night, giving the campers an extra hour to say goodbye to their newfound friends. Felix is certain it’s going to take another hour on top of that to herd the Magvel kids back to their cabin. He awkwardly pats Eirika on the back as she and Lucina have a longing, tear-stained farewell, with promises to write and text and be dear friends ‘forever and ever’. Felix can’t help but wonder if “dear friends” is code for something more.

That’s what he and Sylvain had called each other once upon a time, hadn’t they? Dear friends? He hasn’t gotten reacquainted with Sylvain for long enough to bestow the same title upon him, and phrases like that seem trite, but Felix can’t help but wonder if there’s another meaning hidden within. “Dear friends” is a great way to conceal the sense of yearning, of wanting something special with a person that mere friendship can never hope to contain, to elevate your relationship with them onto a pedestal you might be too afraid to reach. And even when Eirika and Lucina are in an environment where something more than friendship might be safe to explore, they don’t necessarily need to rush into bridging that gap. 

Besides, friendship’s the most important thing that _Felix_ got out of Camp Garreg Mach.

The campers of Magvel settle in bed just after midnight. Felix isn’t going to stop them from staying up way past that; he’d noticed Lyon and Colm stocking up on snacks at a vending machine on the way back, and Neimi and Eirika had been speaking in hushed voices about ‘games to play later’. Nevertheless, this is his last goodnight to them as their counselor, and Felix is definitely not a little misty-eyed when he turns their lights off. Felix casts his campers one last, long glance before stepping out into the woods. He’s about to shut the door behind him before he whips around, voice hitching as he speaks.

“Listen. If anyone-- anybody at all-- if anyone messes with any of you. I’ll fight them. I’m trained in wushu and karate. You saw me split bricks and break wood. So if anyone lays a finger on any of you, I will wipe them the fuck out. Got it?”

A collective, drawn-out “Aww” spreads through the cabin, and Felix once again turns pink amongst all the giggling and laughter. Joshua shoots up in his bed from the far-right of the room, beaming from ear to ear.

“We love you too, Vegeta. One last question though, if you don’t mind: is Larkin your boyfriend?”

Felix narrows his eyes. “Absolutely not.”

Now Tana sits up straight from her bunk nearest the door.

“But would you like him to be?”

Felix slams the door shut.

The next morning brings buses to the airport and taxis to the trains, with the occasional proud parent who’s able to pick up their child in person. Felix spots Sylvain talking to Lucina and Morgan’s parents through the corner of his eye, the two kids hanging around their fathers as Morgan excitedly blabbers on about how much fun they’d had. He glances at the check-out sheet he’s holding, and then towards Ephraim and Eirika, who are sitting on a bench next to him, playing on their phones. They’re the last of his campers to leave; if their parents don’t show up any time soon Felix has half a mind to adopt them and take them home himself.

He’s interrupted by a calm, deep voice.

“Eirika! Ephraim!”

“Father!”

Eirika immediately runs into the arms of a man with an impressive beard. Ephraim drags his feet behind her, groaning as his father pulls away from his twin and then scoops him up in a warm embrace. They remain like that for a moment before the older man pulls away, turning to Felix with a warm smile.

“You must be... V- Vegeta,” he says, clearly struggling to keep a straight face. Felix reaches out to take his hand. “I’m Fado. Ephraim has told me a lot about you.”

“ _Dad_ ,” Ephraim grimaces, “You aren’t supposed to say that.”

“Ephraim, I think I will. Young man,” he says, addressing Felix one more. “I wanted to personally extend a thank-you to you for the impact you’ve had on both my children this summer, but especially my son. I--”

“Will you stop being embarrassing?” Ephraim says, reaching into his pocket to hand Felix a piece of paper, folded in half and then half again. “Here you go, Vegeta. See, Dad, now I’ve embarrassed myself. Can we leave before I make an even bigger fool of me?”

Fado laughs. “There’s nothing wrong with admitting gratitude, you know. Thank you,” he says again, and when he smiles at Felix it sparks a warm, content pride. Felix takes the piece of paper from Ephraim, getting misty-eyed when their family walks away, beyond the campgrounds and sprawling woods of Garreg Mach and into the cold, uninviting world. 

The letter sits limply in his hands now the last of his campers are gone. There’s a gaping, hollow sensation in Felix’s chest where the warm pride once was. He swallows the lump in his throat, beginning to head back towards his cabin. The kitchen staff are preparing a feast for them and there’s an unofficial afterparty at Hilda and Claude’s, so Felix may as well take a nap; he’s got a feeling that he’s going to have a long, long night ahead of him. 

He creaks the door open to realize that he’s the first one home. Felix climbs onto his bed, unfolding the letter to read Ephraim’s messy scrawl.

_Hey Vegeta,_

_I just wanted to say thank you for everything that you’ve done. It was great to get to meet an adult who’s the same as me (bi and trans, don’t worry, I’m saying it, it ISN’T a dirty word) -- and it meant a lot. Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever hit my next birthday_ \--

Tears immediately spring to Felix’s eyes. 

_But you’ve shown me that it’s possible. I didn’t want to say goodbye, but I’ll be back next year if I have my way, one year older. It’d be great to see you too._

_You have no idea how much this means,  
Ephraim._

Sylvain returns to find Felix curled up in his bed, sobbing. He doesn’t say anything when he crawls in under the sheets with Felix, soothing him and petting his hair, rubbing circles into his back. 

There’s no manual for being a “shining example to LGBTQ youth”. Even if there was, Felix is certain it wouldn’t include a guide to saying farewell.

*

Felix isn’t sure where Hilda and Claude got the budget for all this booze or if this party has been officially sanctioned by Camp Garreg Mach, but after a few shots he’s too drunk to question their sources. He doesn’t even flinch when Sylvain slings an arm around him and presses a sloppy, wet smooch on his lips in front of everyone else. In fact, he briefly kisses Sylvain back, grabbing both Sylvain’s cheeks in his palms and pulling him in close, relishing how he tastes like white wine as their tongues lace into one another’s.

The two of them tear apart from each other to a series of cheers and whoops. It must be the alcohol, or the unrelenting heat of the summer night, but a warm flush creeps up inside Felix, staining his cheeks and the back of his ears. Sylvain laughs, tugging Felix up from where he’s sitting cross-legged on the cabin floor. 

“Want to get out of here?” he asks, voice barely audible amongst the din.

Felix snorts. “Better now than never,” he murmurs. Felix’s head is spinning and they’re both blushing from Asian glow. They brush past Manuela who’s denying that she and Hanneman have ever “had relations” and downing her fifth flute of champagne, and slam the door behind them to hear her screaming “Trans rights!” at the top of her lungs. Felix squeezes Sylvain’s hand.

“We’re finding somewhere quiet.”

“Your wish is my command,” Sylvain winks, but he allows Felix to lead him through the courtyard where a campfire burns, past the lake to the other side of Camp Garreg Mach. Felix sits on the bench by the woods where Sylvain had found him a week ago, slamming his hand on the empty spot beside him.

“Sit.”

“Someone’s bossy tonight,” Sylvain says; he’s barely settled down when Felix pulls him in for a passionate, languid kiss. The night air swirls with the scent of the trees and Sylvain’s cologne, melding together to create a dizzying blend that Felix could get drunk on all over again. He brushes his tongue against Sylvain’s lips, imbibing his very essence, relishing his touch, his taste, the last vestiges of a courtship he’ll recount with fondness when summer’s gone. 

It’s too soon when Felix has to surface for breath. His face still lingers in the palms of Sylvain’s hands, and their noses remain pressed against one another’s like they can hardly bear to part. Fondness and warmth flickers in Sylvain’s soft brown eyes, and Felix sees himself reflected in them-- dumb, wasted, and radiating with joy and delight.

That’s a version of himself he hasn’t seen in a good, long while. Felix closes his eyes, pledging to commit the image to memory.

Of course, he’s the one to shatter the moment. He takes in a gulp of cool air to briefly shock sobriety into his mind. It barely works.

“We either end this here, or you promise to not break my heart,” Felix says in a low voice. 

Sylvain’s eyes widen. He jerks away for a second before returning to press a kiss on Felix’s lips, then forehead.

“I can’t promise you anything,” Sylvain murmurs. “I like you a lot; I know that much. But more than anything else I’d like to keep you as a friend. I’m not losing you a second time, not after you’ve come back. I’d say it was a miracle if I believed in those, and trust me,” he says, grabbing Felix’s hands, “More than anything else I want you in my life. I know Dimitri and Ingrid feel the same.”

“Is this over, then?” Felix asks. He can’t deny the jolt of stinging disappointment. “Shall we return to _just friends_?”

Sylvain sighs.

“You’ve seen how I can hurt you.”

Felix thinks about Sylvain snarling at him in the cabin that one fateful night, spitting curses at him that almost drove him to tears. But he thinks of Sylvain’s kind laughter on their rowboat, and the gentle tone he’d used when making bracelets with their kids; he thinks of how Sylvain had glowed bright and radiant when their eyes met across the campfire on their first night here. These are the same person, the same Sylvain. It’s hard to reconcile the two. 

“We’ve done our fair share of hurting each other,” Felix says. “Your regret speaks volumes in itself. What do you actually want?”

“What do _you_ want?”

“I want you,” Felix says, a declaration of desire bolder than he’d thought he was capable of. “I want you in any capacity at all. As a friend or possibly more, but don’t you dare walk out of my life after you waltzed back into it. And don’t you dodge the question.” 

Sylvain sighs, leaning back and scratching the back of his head.

“I’m afraid,” he says. “I want to keep this going, but I’m scared shitless that I’ll ruin it. Not just for myself, but for you, Dimitri and Ingrid, and that finding you again will all be for nothing.”

“Then don’t decide,” Felix says. “We’ve established that we both want to stay in touch regardless. We’ll both go back home and see what happens next.”

The idea of not seeing Sylvain’s smile the first thing in the morning when he wakes up is more upsetting than Felix would like to admit. Sylvain nods, slinging an arm around Felix’s waist.

“You’re right,” he says. “Let’s see how things go. Promise you’ll come visit at some point?”

“Pay for my flight,” Felix says, though he knows that Sylvain knows that this means yes.

They spend some more time talking. There are questions-- _“How the hell did you know I was me?” “Felix, you had so many tells. The older brother, the look on your face when you said you hated sweets,”_ \-- bad jokes-- _“What if we were making out and I asked if you’d go Super Saiyan on me?” “Sylvain, do you want me to end your life?”_ and stolen kisses, hands slipped underneath shirts and teeth grazing the skin of Sylvain’s neck. Felix is no expert at body language, but it’s easy to gather from the way Sylvain’s touch lingers on his waist, skimming the base of his sports bra that he wants more than kissing, that he’s dropping hints for an invitation for something more. 

It’s cute that Sylvain is treating him delicately. Felix is having absolutely none of it. He pulls Sylvain in closer by the shirt.

“Put that silver tongue of yours to good use. How far are we going tonight?”

Sylvain winks. “I never thought you’d ask. Why, I can take you as far as you’d like me--”

“Fine,” Felix says, scrambling to his feet. The alcohol’s just starting to wear off, and he’s now just drunk enough to savor the weight of a well-placed bad decision. He storms towards their cabin quicker and more hungry than he’d like to admit, only to be greeted by a sock on their doorknob and Dimitri blinking in confusion.

“I just attempted to open the door, but I feel like it might be bolted. I tried to text the group chat, but neither you nor Ingrid were--”

Sylvain howls with laughter.

“Dimitri. Dimmadome. Dimmers. Do you have _no_ idea what this,” he gestures to the sock on the doorknob, “means? It means our girl Ingrid’s getting some.”

“I,” Dimitri stares at the sock, and then back up at Sylvain and Felix as though he’s been crushed with the sheer weight of this realization, “Who wit--”

A high-pitched, familiar voice exclaims, “Dorothea!” from the cabin, as though Ingrid had heard their calls. Dimitri flushes, clearly too embarrassed to say more.

“I-- I think it’s best we take our leave, then,” Dimitri says, before skittering away back towards the direction of Hilda and Claude’s party. Sylvain waits for Dimitri to be out of earshot before heaving a heavy sigh.

“Well, guess there’s that. Guess I’ll have to pay for that flight--”

“What are you, a coward?” Felix says. He grabs Sylvain’s hand and places it on his chest. Sylvain’s eyes go wide with shock. 

“Do you want,” Felix says, “To touch my tits? I’m getting surgery in the winter. This is your one and only chance.”

Now it’s Sylvain’s turn to go red. “Holy shit, Fe--”

“Limited edition honkers. You heard me. I’m never going to say this sober, so: are we going to find a place to get it on or _what_?”

“Oh my god,” Sylvain murmurs underneath his breath. “Of course I do, I just never thought you’d be this forward. It’s,” he says, bending over to whisper in Felix’s ear, “It’s really hot.”

Felix has never had sex outside of the comforts of a bedroom, but he figures some stupid hour on the last day of camp is a great time to test it. And he’s got the perfect plan. He locks his fingers around Sylvain’s wrist, dragging him back across the woods towards the lake, marching up towards the shed where they’d gotten high a couple of weeks ago. He glances around furtively, and Sylvain quirks a brow in amusement.

“Here? Really?”

“Have a better suggestion?” Felix snarls, flushed. Now that he’s executed his plan (if he can even call it that) he’s more nervous than he’d like to admit, especially considering he isn’t sure if Sylvain’s slept with a trans person before-- but they’ve come too far to back down now. He’s not going to flee. Felix unlocks the shed door, beckoning for Sylvain to follow him inside. Once they’re inside he bolts the entrance behind them. Sylvain turns on his flashlight, illuminating the shed with an incandescent glow. 

“I’d ask you if you were sure, but--”

Sylvain’s spoken enough. Felix crushes his lips against his. His heart thunders in his chest as he yanks Sylvain in by the collar of his shirt, fingernails digging into Sylvain’s scalp while he drinks in the scent of his breath, demanding more, _more_. Felix is thankful that Sylvain’s sharp enough to pick up on what he’s put down, and Sylvain inches forward, pushing up on Felix until they’re pressed against the wall, Felix letting out a litany of moans when Sylvain pulls away to pepper kisses down his neck. Felix’s elbow bumps into a timber plate when Sylvain shoves his body against Felix’s, pinning an arm down to immobilize him in some show of strength. Not bad for a guy who Felix could flip around and crush at any moment. Not bad at all. Felix squirms against the shed wall, trying to find a more comfortable position while Sylvain presses kisses down his collarbone, barely able to find a spot between two panels when he heaves a breath.

“Sylvain.”

“Yeah?” Sylvain asks, pulling away. “Is everything all right?”

“I-- I--” Fuck, he should have drank more for this. He’s going to have to act fast before sobriety and self-doubt rear their ugly heads. “We’re doing this because you want it,” he says, more a question than a statement.

Sylvain laughs. “Felix, I’ve wanted to get my hands on you since the first time we locked eyes. You’re,” he says, bending in to nip his teeth at Felix’s earlobe, “extremely hot.” 

Felix should know this in theory, but he’s still having a hard time internalizing the thought. Sylvain pushes him a little closer towards believing it. It’s strangely validating for Sylvain to feast his gaze on Felix like he’s the best thing he’s laid his eyes on. And Felix can’t say he isn’t enjoying himself, not when he lets out a sigh of pleasure when Sylvain rolls his khaki shorts down, and then his boxer briefs. The warmth pooling inside him grows with every love bite that Sylvain leaves up his thighs, each mark etched into his legs, and Felix notes that he’s going to have to get his revenge-- have Sylvain marked up like this later, but more; to make him feel like this, but better. 

Though Felix isn’t sure if it can get any better than this, any warmer than the fire that courses through him with Sylvain’s touch. When Felix comes it’s with thunder spilling through his veins, lightning bubbling through his skin, a force of pleasure so powerful that it could tear him apart. Felix feels his back thump against the boat shed with a brutal force, and he howls with a combination of pleasure and pain, and Sylvain has the gall to laugh before continuing to lap at him, licking and sucking while Felix rides through his orgasm. When he’s done Sylvain’s hands guide Felix as he collapses to the floor in an exhausted heap. Felix slumps against the wall, and a smile tugs at his lips despite himself. Sylvain laughs.

“How’d I do?”

“Fine,” Felix says, and he grabs Sylvain by his cheeks, pulling him into a passionate, crushing kiss. Now that Sylvain’s grinding up against him Felix can’t help but notice the bulge inside his pants, and a weak jolt of pleasure travels through him with the realization that _he did that_. He certainly doesn’t want Sylvain inside him, at least not right now, and certainly not from the front, but it’s still a good feeling to see Sylvain rock-hard when he crawls on top of Felix where he’s sitting on the ground. Felix pats the spot next to him.

“Your turn. I’m getting you off.”

After everything that Sylvain’s put him through, Felix is certainly getting a sick thrill out of seeing him come undone, especially by Felix’s own mouth, his own hand. Sex with a cis man is messier than Felix had imagined, but he can’t complain, not when he’s got Sylvain right where he wants him, pleading for clemency, pleading for _him_ , even if Felix isn’t quite sure what he’s doing as he jacks Sylvain off. When Sylvain comes it’s with a shout, seed spilling into Felix’s closed palm, and he slumps against the wall, heaving. 

Felix stares at his hands. Messy. 

Not that he’s complaining. 

The two of them sit there in silence for a few moments before Sylvain laughs. Felix can’t help but laugh too-- this feels so foolish, and perhaps Ingrid had been right when she’d said they were acting like a pair of lovestruck kids. Sylvain leans up to press a kiss on Felix’s cheek.

“Let’s get ourselves cleaned up,” he says. “Especially you.”

“It’s not a huge deal,” Felix shrugs. “Open the door for me so I don’t get cum all over it. I’ll wash my hands off in the lake.”

Sylvain’s eyes go wide. “Dude, our kids swam in that lake--”

“We aren’t going to be the first people to cum in this lake, Sylvain. Fish cum in the lake.” 

Sylvain groans. “Fair point,” he says, pulling on his pants and clothes before helping Felix with his. 

Dorothea is conspicuously gone by the time Sylvain and Felix arrive in the room, and there’s a condom in the trash bin that wasn’t there before. Felix decides it’s wisest not to comment, though he snickers when Sylvain reaches to Ingrid for a high-five and she responds with, “I’m going to kill you.” Dimitri returns soon after, and the four of them stay up late talking through the night.

*

Dimitri sets his “Baby Shark” alarm for nine in the morning, but Felix’s body clock jolts him up at six-forty five anyway. He stirs where he’s sleeping, gently burrowing into Sylvain’s arms; it’s so hot that one of them must have thrown the blanket onto the ground in the middle of the night, but they’d decided to make like a pair of fools and cuddle anyway. Felix smiles into his pillow, just beginning to coast on his second wave of slumber when he’s awoken by a second, unfamiliar text tone.

“Who the hell forgot to silence their phone?” he asks no-one in particular, grimacing when the loud beep rings through the cabin again. Sylvain’s eyes flutter open next to him, and he wraps his arm around Felix in a vain attempt to cajole him back into slumber.

“I think that’s mine. Sorry, but--” 

“Shut it up,” Felix says, wrapping his pillow around his ears and turning around to face the wall. Sylvain laughs, slinking out of bed to silence his phone where it’s charging on the desk. He picks up the Apple device and his eyes go wide.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” he mutters, grabbing his phone from the charger and stuffing it in his pocket. He rolls on back into their bed, sliding in next to Felix with a small, resigned smile.

“So, I’ve got good news and bad news.”

Felix groans. He really would like to get more than two hours of sleep, and that’s not going to happen if Sylvain keeps talking. “Bad news first,” he mutters into his pillow. Sylvain laughs, leaning in and pressing a kiss next to one of the hickeys he left on Felix’s neck last night.

“My flight’s been delayed by six fucking hours, so I don’t take off till six.”

Felix raises an eyebrow. “And the good news is?”

“Well the good news was that I was going to leave here at ten in the morning along with Dimitri and Ingrid, so,” Sylvain says, shifting slightly on his side of the mattress, “What time is your flight?”

Felix feels like he’s been struck by lightning. “Five,” he mutters, loosening his grip on his pillow and turning around to blink at Sylvain. Childlike glee begins to bubble inside his chest with the realization that the two of them will have one last afternoon together; a few more hours of stolen time. Sylvain grins wickedly, and Felix can’t help but smirk back. He reaches out for Sylvain, entwining their pinkie fingers together.

They toss and turn for a few more minutes before Sylvain declares sleeping a hopeless cause, especially not if they’re going to be pressed up against each other like this. The smart thing to do would probably be for Felix to climb the ladder and sleep on his own bunk. Instead, he and Sylvain decide to brush their teeth and get an early breakfast before taking a morning walk by the lake. The birds chirp so much louder and his world feels like it’s spinning in Felix’s sleep-deprived haze, and Felix silently thanks his genetics for the fact that he doesn’t get hung over. A night of drinking has rendered him absolutely ravenous, though, and he stuffs his face with sausages and scrambled eggs in the dining hall, noting how empty it is now their campers have all cleared out from the premises of Garreg Mach.

It’s nice to be here alone with Sylvain, but he can still hear the ghostly echoes of his campers’ laughter. At least Felix doesn’t have to hide when Sylvain kisses a spot of ketchup off his cheek.

It’s almost nine by the time Felix and Sylvain get back to their cabin. Their floor is strewn with stray sneakers, flannel shirts, and other miscellaneous items like a book on beekeeping (Dimitri’s) and a vinyl record of Taylor Swift’s _Lover_ (2019) that could only belong to one person here. Dimitri and Ingrid’s suitcases lie sprawled open in the center of the room, and Felix swears he sees Sylvain’s eyebrow twitch at the sight of the mess. He’s suddenly very thankful that Sylvain has never seen his room back in Seattle. Sylvain sighs, slumping onto his bed, raising both his hands in resignation.

“You guys couldn’t have found a more organized way of doing this, right?”

“I don’t want to hear it from you, Sylvain,” Ingrid says, clicking her tongue. She stuffs a pair of Timbs into the side of her suitcase. “If you’re so bothered by this mess, why don’t you come and help me clean it up?”

“Now, now, Ingrid. We all know Sylvain derives great joy in complaining about other people’s hygiene habits, just like you enjoy telling people what to do--”

Ingrid grabs a pillow and gently whups Dimitri over the head with it. Felix snorts, though he can’t help but feel a bittersweet twinge in his heartstrings.

“I suppose this is it?” Felix says. “We part, and I never see any of you again?” 

Ingrid’s eyes go wide at the suggestion, and Felix suddenly regrets his poor attempt at a joke. He can’t entirely blame Ingrid considering the emails he’d sent them as a child. 

“Fine,” Felix concedes with a sigh. “I’ll visit. Or you can come visit me,” he says, slumping down next to Sylvain. Sylvain reaches for his hand, and Felix doesn’t protest when he begins toying with his fingers. “My dad told me to invite you guys to Seattle. He says you can stay in our guest room. His cooking isn’t the same as my mom’s was, but he promises he’ll try.”

Ingrid suddenly perks up at the mention of food. “Pork buns?”

“Basic. But yes,” Felix scoffs, “We’ll get you pork buns.”

Sylvain snorts. “That was easy,” he says, resting his head on Felix’s, running his hands through his hair. They continue chatting while Dimitri and Ingrid clean up their mess, Sylvain taking every chance he can get to rib them for not packing beforehand. Dimitri needs Felix and Ingrid to sit on his suitcase before he can seal it shut, but after what seems like forever, they’re done. Ingrid sprawls out on the floor, lying face-first on Sylvain’s rainbow rug.

“I’m never drinking again,” she says weakly, but Felix thinks it might do her good to get to make some dumb decisions for once.

They say their last goodbyes half an hour or so after, Sylvain enveloping Dimitri, Felix and Ingrid in a warm group hug. Tears prick at Felix’s eyes as he pulls away from his long-lost friends. Dimitri fumbles with his phone as he struggles to add Felix into their Messenger group text, while Ingrid and Sylvain yell increasingly unhelpful suggestions at him (“Remember Faerghus? What if our group chat name was the Faerghus Four?” “Or the Fartgas Four?” “ _Sylvain_.”) Felix smiles, taking a beat to savor the last of these moments, the last vestiges of their time as a quartet before they’re once again torn apart. 

He trudges behind Dimitri and Ingrid to the camp gates to see them off. Their Uber pulls up towards the gates, and a flood of emotion hits Felix like a Seattle Streetcar-- Sylvain holds Felix in his arms while he bawls like a baby. 

Felix hasn’t cried this much since childhood, but now that camp is ending it seems like he can’t fucking stop. He feels like someone had carved his insides out years ago, leaving a gaping wound in his chest that he’d never realized was there. And while finding the answers to his childhood seems to have momentarily healed it over, having Dimitri and Ingrid be the ones to walk out on him this time feels like a punch to the gut. The hollow feeling he’d lived with all his life creeps back through his spine, crawling through his veins, and it’s only when Sylvain starts rubbing circles into his back with promises of “we’ll see you again, this isn’t the end” that Felix starts to think that he might bounce back from it.

Felix had felt whole for an entire month. Some day, he’ll wake up every morning feeling that way.

Now it’s his and Sylvain’s turn to return to their cabin to pack. Sylvain’s an unsurprisingly quick packer-- he’d been a neat freak even as a kid-- and Felix hadn’t brought a lot to camp in the first place. The two of them finish up in far less time than Dimitri and Ingrid had, and Felix tugs Sylvain onto their bunk when they’re done. He pushes Sylvain onto the sheets, and oh, how he loves Sylvain’s wide-eyed look of surprise when Felix crushes his lips against his-- it’s delightful how taken aback Sylvain is every time Felix gains the upper hand. 

Sex, Felix has decided, is much better when you’re both sober and there’s an actual bed to have it on. Not that he would trade their cursed shed encounter for anything, but there’s something to be said for being able to loom over Sylvain like he owns him, to relish Sylvain’s gasps of pleasure without worrying that they’ll be overheard. When the two of them are sated Sylvain reaches out for a high-five, and Felix rolls his eyes before slapping his palm against his. He gets up from the bed, sliding on his sports bra and a grey T-shirt. 

“We should go take a shower,” Felix says. Sylvain waggles his eyebrows. Felix places his finger on his lips. “Are you kidding me? Anyone could walk into those showers at any moment. Contrary to how we’re acting, we aren’t the two last people here.”

Their plan to take a shower is subverted when they walk past the lake, and Sylvain decides it’s a great idea to rip his shirt off and take a dip. “We’ll be the first victims of my lake cummies,” Sylvain grins, and Felix tries very, very hard not to laugh. They spend a good, long while splashing around in the deep, laughing like children as they reenact their campers’ previous water fight. Felix can’t help but feel his heart swell with warmth. Sylvain’s fire could envelop the two of them; it’s stronger and more magnetic than the summer sun.

The two of them leave Camp Garreg Mach at two o’ clock. Felix waves goodbye to Hanneman, Seteth and Manuela, mumbling begrudging promises to come back next year. Sylvain’s already waiting for him in the Uber, and once he slams the door shut Felix rests on Sylvain’s chest, relishing the sound of his heartbeat. For once, neither of them have the capacity for words, and Sylvain pulls out his earbuds, offering one side to Felix so they can share. The dulcet tones of some band Felix can’t recognize blast from Sylvain’s Spotify playlist, and Felix makes a mental note to go back and brush up on esoteric Bandcamp artists. It seems like that’s all Sylvain listens to outside of songs he liked in his childhood. Felix presses a soft kiss to Sylvain’s jawline. Their Uber driver, a tall woman named Lily, smiles into the rearview mirror.

“You’re a cute couple,” she says. Neither of them have the heart to protest.

Traffic is surprisingly light for a Saturday afternoon. They pull up to the airport with more than enough time to spare. It takes Felix a moment to readjust to the sensation of being surrounded by so many people in the airport; he’s not sure he’s seen so many flashing colors and LED lights in the last month. There’s something painfully sterile about being surrounded by the noise of PA systems and technology after he’s been shrouded by nature and warmth, and the soft hum of the hustle and bustle is almost overwhelming. Felix checks into his flight and he and Sylvain walk to TSA together. Sylvain leans in close to Felix, a sad smile etched on his lips.

“So, I don’t think I mentioned that my flight leaves from a different terminal from yours,” he says. “And Montreal’s international, so I need to go pretty soon, but let me at least see you off before you leave.”

“I’m not leaving,” Felix mumbles. “Well, I am, but you know-- _ugh_ ,” he scowls, “You haven’t seen the last of me.”

Sylvain nods. “I know,” he says, bending over and pressing a gentle kiss to Felix’s forehead. “Don’t be a stranger, okay, Vegeta?"

Felix rolls his eyes at the nickname, but he supposes there are worse things to be called. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

Sylvain pulls him in closer, kissing Felix like it’s with his dying breath. Felix has read Tumblr quotes and platitudes about how airports see more sincere kisses than wedding halls, but he’d never thought much of it until he’s experienced it himself-- Sylvain’s hands wrapping around his waist, drinking in Felix’s scent like it could be the last time they touch. Felix can’t help but get pulled into Sylvain’s passion. It could be the heat of the moment, or the overwhelming joy of having this part of his lost childhood in his arms, but Felix doesn’t even care that he’s kissing Sylvain in front of the crashing seas of people. 

They pull away too soon. Now _Sylvain’s_ fighting to hold back tears. He leans against the bannister that separates departures from TSA, reaching into his pocket and handing Felix a note.

“I’ve got something for you,” Sylvain says. “I know Ephraim stole my thunder by writing you a letter goodbye, but take this. Promise not to read it until you’re on the flight?” 

Felix flushes as he stuffs the note into his pocket. “I-- fuck, I don’t have anything for you-- wait,” he mutters, bending over and reaching into his carry-on. He pulls out one of his camp shirts and hands it to Sylvain. 

“It’s probably a size or two too small for you, but this is. In case you miss me.” 

Sylvain waggles his eyebrows as he grabs hold of the shirt, stuffing it into his pocket. “Now I definitely get to be Mr. Vegeta, don’t I?” 

“Someone here has an international flight to catch. That person isn’t me.” 

Sylvain laughs, planting one last, wet, sloppy kiss on Felix’s lips before Felix steps through the TSA barricade. He doesn’t stop waving while Felix goes through security, and he blows him a kiss through the glass window once he’s on the other side. 

_Felix,_

_Do you ever feel like the last four weeks were a fever dream? At one point, I started to worry that I’d wake up in my place back in Montreal and realize you were just a figment of my imagination. (The marks you left on me really helped to assuage that fear, so thanks. I wouldn’t say no to more of those in the future.) But man, what a summer. I didn’t expect to roll up to Camp Garreg Mach and find you again, and I definitely didn’t expect you to be this hot. I’m going to stop right here before I turn this into the medieval equivalent of a sext, but it drives me crazy that you don’t seem to know._

_I’m delighted that we got to spend so much time together. Talk about wild coincidences, huh? It felt like we were making up for lost time, filling in the gaps of our missing youth. I’ll admit that I used to compare you to your childhood self when I realized you were, well, you, but that was pretty unfair of me. Anyway, you’re way cooler than he was. I hope you think I’m cooler than my childhood self too, though the bar is pretty low considering what losers we all were back then._

_I’m sure it’s no surprise I’m a bit of a nihilist. Life is meaningless, we’re all going to die, et cetera, et cetera. On the flip side, it means I’m happily surprised at every coincidence, and stuff like this makes me wonder if the universe does give a damn about us after all. How the hell did we end up in the same place at the same time, living in the same cabin? I say this knowing that it goes against literally everything I believe, but I wonder if there’s some sort of force pulling us together. I’m hesitant to call it fate. But I’m not complaining, whatever it is._

_Look at us now. We made it to adulthood despite everything we’ve been through. I’d like to think my younger self would be proud of me, and I think that baby Felix should be proud of you, too. Between your great arms and your adorable laugh and your dry sense of humor, I’ve gotta say that Felix Ma’s a pretty awesome dude. I’m glad to be your friend. I’d love to see if we could be something more._

_Say hi to Glenn and your dad for me! Tell them I’ll grace them with my wondrous company sometime soon. Until then, you’ll just have to deal with me blowing up your phone with texts every day._

_Keep slaying beasts,_  
Sylvain of Faerghus,  
Margrave Gautier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a lot of people to thank for helping me through this fic. I don't even know where to get started, but I'll try.
> 
> Thank you to Dima, Jesse, Joey, Noah and Rui for helping me workshop my outline. J, for helping with the Ingrid sections, and Luna, for being the springboard for this idea back in September or October, way before I thought I'd actually be able to write this. Nena and Lily, who beta-ed for me: some of your commentary did make its way into the fic. You know where it is.
> 
> I want to give a super big shout-out to Devin, who drew not one, not two, but SIX pictures, and also beta-ed for me. Talk about winning the Big Bang lottery. 
> 
> Finally, I'd like to thank all past and present members of the Biggest Bang group chat, and my friends from the JRS for all your support. As well as anyone who let me scream at them about this fic, really. You're all amazing. 
> 
> I'll probably post an epilogue for this fic at some point, so stay tuned. However, if you want more of Felix and Sylvain in this universe, I'd like to direct you to [Hey There Gautigamers](https://twitter.com/gautired/status/1289615306579537921) by Isa1187, which is a hilarious, spookier sequel of sorts. Any difference between headcanons/factual discrepancies between the two fics are most definitely caused by Felix's shitty memory, and not because Isa and I decided to run off and do what we wanted. 
> 
> I managed to finish this? I managed to finish this. Wow.
> 
> (Find me on Twitter @gautired. If you enjoyed this fic, give me a [retweet](https://twitter.com/gautired/status/1289615306579537921)!)


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